Capture the Flag, Anyone?
by awesomesauce90
Summary: A very eventful capture-the-flag game leads to a disaster for Camp Half-Blood, and a packed hospital in the Big House. Rated T for violence.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello, my username is snowflake45 and this is my first fanfiction. I am sorry that this story has to be published on my friend's account, but regrettably, I cannot get an account of my own yet (*sobs*). Only 4 more months to go! Anyway, I hope you enjoy this story! Please read and review!**

**Disclaimer: By the way, I do not own PJO and/or HOO. They belong to Rick Riordan, and Rick Riordan only.**

**Now that's settled, on with the story.**

**Percy's POV**

"You're going down, Seaweed Brain," Annabeth announced, looking me straight in the eyes. Her lips curved into a mocking smile and she stared at me, grinning from ear to ear.

"Oh, yeah?" I challenged, staring back at her. The sun was setting and it was nearly dark. I looked into her gray eyes. They were gradually turning darker the father the sun set. They glittered with amusement, and each part of her iris was a different shade of gray.

"A daughter of Athena always, always, has a plan," she said slyly, repeating the words she had told me at the beginning and end of my first game of capture-the-flag at Camp Half-Blood.

We were headed down to the woods to play a heated game of capture-the-flag. It had been three months since the war with Gaea. Everyone had basically recovered (more or less), from the battle at Camp Half-Blood and the Greek demigods were on friendly terms with the Romans. In fact, many of the campers including Rachel Dare, the oracle, had gone to the Roman camp. I was grateful that the two camps were getting along together and no longer trying to kill each other. Although, most our our problems probably disappeared in a huge screaming fireball (*cough, Octavian, cough*).

Annabeth and I were walking through the strawberry fields, hand-in-hand down to the forest. Behind us, the Demeter kids were yelling at us not to trample the strawberries, but we ignored them. We gradually made our way down to the undergrowth. I was really eager for the game of capture-the-flag. This time, it was the Athena, Aphrodite, Nike, Demeter, Ares, Hermes, Dionysus, and Nemesis cabins against me, Jason, Nico, the Apollo cabin, the Hephaestus cabin, the Iris, Hecate, and Hypnos cabins. It was going to be a great game, but I was sure that Annabeth had something nasty up her sleeve, probably just for me. She was a very fierce fighter and a brilliant strategist. I had no doubt that this was going to be one of the trickiest games of capture-the-flag I had ever played.

"Do you remember the time when I first came to camp?" I asked, the memories returning to me.

Annabeth smirked. "Yeah. You were so annoying, ignorant, and you drooled in your sleep."

I laughed at the last one. "But you had a crush on me the moment I arrived."

"I did not!" Annabeth protested, blushing a deep shade of red. Behind us, I heard an Aphrodite camper squeal. Might have been Piper. She would probably kill me if I said this aloud, especially in front of the whole camp, but she _was _a daughter of Aphrodite. She had inherited a few traits from her mom, even if she tried her best to deny it.

"Yeah, right." I rolled my eyes.

Annabeth punched me, and I rubbed my arm. She scowled. "It doesn't matter now, Seaweed Brain. We're together and that's all that counts." She sounded a little miffed when she said it.

"That's all that counts," I agreed. I leaned in to give Annabeth a sweet, compassionate kiss and I could hear the Aphrodite campers stop walking behind us and catch their breaths excitedly. The whole world seemed to have stopped: it was just me and Annabeth, together in our own little world. My lips had just begun to brush hers and she had just thrown her arms around me, when something interrupted us.

A high pitched scream sounded in the air, followed by a chorus of shouts, and some more screaming. Annabeth and I immediately broke apart and started to run back up the hill, towards the yelling's source. As I ran, I uncapped Riptide and Annabeth unsheathed her drakon bone sword from the scabbard around her waist. As we bolted past the huddled group of Aphrodite campers, I could hear disappointed mumblings about how they hadn't witnessed a kiss, but I was too preoccupied at the moment to be be annoyed.

While I ran, thoughts flew through my brain. _What kind of monster is it this time? Hellhounds, empousai, scythian dracanae? Giants, stymphalian birds, minotaurs or gorgons? Or maybe it's humongous spiders. Annabeth would really hate that. Although, I'm not really sure if there is such a thing, but if Arachne was real... well, I really don't want to think about that right at the moment._

I crested the top of the hill with Annabeth right on my heels, and Thalia's pine tree slowly came into view. As I sprinted up to the headland as fast as I could, I mentally prepared myself for what I might find ahead (and hoped it wasn't the giant spiders). But nothing could have prepared me for this. I stopped, dead in my tracks and Annabeth bumped into me from behind. She quickly maneuvered from around me, as she could tell I would not be moving anytime soon, and looked up into the dusky sky at what I was staring at. Her jaw dropped.

Hovering up in the air, on a slightly dented but still perfectly flyable bronze dragon, sat a flaming Leo Valdez.

Everyone had thought Leo was dead. Both Nico and Hazel had felt his death. All of the campers of Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter had thought both Leo and Octavian had perished in the huge explosion that had dispersed Gaea. But apparently, they were wrong. Leo was seated, perfectly fine and very much alive, on Festus; an overly overenthusiastic grin plastered on his face. But that wasn't all. Sitting behind him, with her hands clasped tightly around his waist, sat a teenage girl in a silver and white Greek chiton. Her auburn colored hair was woven in a braid that hung over one shoulder, and she had the most beautiful almond eyes. The scents of honeysuckle, cinnamon, and the fragrance of baking bread wreathed around her, swirling and dancing in the slight breeze.

Leo had returned and he had brought Calypso with him.

**Leo's POV**

It was all so funny watching the other campers' reactions as we swooped down from the sky. I watched from atop Festus as Percy and Annabeth sprinted up the hill, and watched as their jaws dropped. They looked as if they had been smacked completely senseless. My smile grew even wider. Seeing Percy looking dumbfounded was an ordinary thing. He looked like a fish, gaping, his mouth wide open and his eyes wide in disbelief. However, seeing Annabeth that flabbergasted was a rare thing, and I was enjoying every bit of it. She looked completely overwhelmed, and she kept gasping every few seconds like she couldn't get enough oxygen or something.

I could feel Calypso's smooth, strong hands hanging onto my waist and as I gradually stood up, I could feel them try to stay there. "What are you doing?" She hissed in my ear. "You're going the fall off and break your neck!"

I turned around and grinned at her. "Watch and learn, Sunshine," I said.

I heard her groan and could almost feel her roll eyes as I turned back around towards my spectacular audience. A small crowd had started to gather and all of them looked as confused and bewildered as Percy, some even more so. I rubbed my hands together gleefully, and a wicked smile spread across my face. This was going to be fun.

When the group of people surrounding us became a moderate number, I stepped forward on Festus. It was kind of hard to balance since the bronze dragon was in constant motion: flapping his wings, shifting to hit just the right air currents to stay flying, or just plain vibrating because, of course, he was a machine; but somehow I managed it. I spread my arms wide and said in a loud voice. "Fellow demigods! Fear no more! Leo Valdez, Supreme Commander of the _Argo II, _Super Sized McShizzle Man, and Bad Boy Supreme is back! Everything is under control!"

In response to my little speech, I nearly got my brain punctured by an arrow.

I yelped and jumped back as the gold tipped arrow whistled over my head, and fell somewhere onto the hill behind me. Calypso didn't even flinch. I collapsed into a sitting position, and looked down at the crowd of campers in annoyance. I saw Annabeth, looking very smug, standing next to Will Solace. Will had his bow out and he had obviously been the one who had shot at me. I took a second to catch my breath and calm my nerves, and then stood back up on Festus' back.

"Annabeth!" I yelled. "What in Hades was that for?"

"Oh, sorry Leo," she said, barely hiding a smile. "We didn't see you there. I just asked Will to shoot at an irritating little pest."

"Oh, okay," I said. I was about to move on with the conversation when I heard Calypso snort from behind me. I looked down at the demigods below me, and saw that were all laughing. Percy was guffawing into his shirt and Annabeth was giggling into her hand. Clarisse was chortling and muttering something that sounded suspiciously like, "Loser," under her breath, and Drew and the rest of her posse were whispering to each other (probably spreading rumors of now I was an idiot), and sending disgusted glances my way. Will was literally on the floor laughing, clutching his bow, and even Nico cracked a small, subtle smile. I ignored them all.

"Oh, very funny, Annabeth! Laugh it up! Aren't you guys happy to see me?"

Annabeth immediately stopped snickering. "Why, yes, Leo, we are happy to see you," she said, with an evil gleam in her eyes. She smiled, and Percy looked over at her worriedly. He knew she had something on her mind.

"What are you planning, Annabeth?" Percy leaned towards her, looking her in the eyes.

"Oh, nothing," Annabeth said quietly. She grinned.

"Oh, really? Wise Girl, I've known you for five years now. I know when you have something up your sleeve."

Annabeth promptly ignored him, and turned back to deal with me.

"Where have you, been, Leo?" She asked, this time looking serious.

"Well, I after I died and got resurrected, I went back to get somebody," I said, smiling. Turning around behind me, I grabbed Calypso's hand, and made a move to help her stand up. She pulled her hand back, and stayed seated. "What are you doing?" She said incredulously. "I am _not _going to stand up on a flying automation!"

"Come on, Sunshine," I said. "Festus is perfectly safe! He not going to fall out of the sky! Trust me!"

Calypso rolled her eyes. "Says the scrawny demigod who blew up my dining table!"

I grinned. "It was an accident!" I protested, trying to defend himself.

Calypso smiled. "Alright, but if I fall, you are the one who is going to catch me."

"Fine." I agreed. Calypso grasped my outstretched hand, and I helped her up. She got to her feet, wobbling slightly on Festus' back, but she quickly regained her balance. I carefully helped her to the front of my flying bronze dragon. She stood next to me as I addressed the crowd of demigods below us.

"This is Calypso," I told them, gently taking her hand. "She's my girlfriend. I rescued her from Ogygia." Calypso turned to me, and smiled. I grinned back. Her dark eyes sparkled and she looked happier than I had ever seen her. I wanted to kiss her so badly, but I held myself back. _This isn't the time, _I instructed myself. _Later._

We turned back to the crowd of campers assembled below us. They all stood around in shock, and whispers flew through the air at the speed of light, especially from the Aphrodite kids. I supposed that it had never crossed their minds that I might have had a girlfriend. I smirked, enjoying their confusion. This really was ending up to be a great day.

**Calypso's POV**

I was scanning the faces of the demigods that were milling below us, searching for any familiar faces, when I suddenly saw him. Percy Jackson. He was standing down there in the crowd, his arm around the blond haired girl called eyes locked onto him and my face went white. I stood stock still, remembering the day when he fell from the sky, into the waters around my island. I didn't move a muscle. Leo must have noticed that I looked a little pale, because he asked me, "Are you alright?"

I turned to him with a weak smile on my face. "Yes," I said, although it wasn't true. To be honest, I kind of felt like I was going to faint. It had never crossed my mind when Leo suggested that we go to Camp Half-Blood that I would see Percy again. I mean, I already knew he was one of the Seven: Leo had told me that while he was stuck on Ogygia. I just never thought I would meet him _here._

Leo probably wasn't convinced because his face took on the peculiar expression it got when he was trying to figure something mechanical out. I had seen that look many times while he was on my island, and it was very familiar to me. I also knew Leo was smart and particularly clever. He would find out what was troubling me soon enough, if he hadn't yet already.

My theory was proved correct when about thirty seconds after he started pondering the problem, his face took on an understanding expression. He followed my gaze, and his eyes landed on Percy. Leo's smile faded a little, like he was regretting his offer to bring me to camp Camp Half-Blood. He probably thought that I was going to dump him for Percy. I must admit, I did love him once, however that was a long time ago. Percy Jackson had a girlfriend now, and I had Leo. That was all I needed. I loved Leo now. And I wanted him to know that he was the only one in my heart and on my mind.

I gently leaned over towards him, threw my arms around his neck, and kissed him in front of all those demigods. In any other circumstance, I would have felt highly embarrassed, but this was an exception. I wanted Leo to know he was the only one I loved. At first, he seemed surprised when I just reached over and kissed him like that, but he quickly recovered. He kissed me back, and after about a minute, we separated from our embrace, each of us sporting huge, idiotic smiles on our faces. Someone below us in the crowd whistled and the continued whispers grew louder and circulated faster than ever. My face was flushed a little, but I still stood there on Festus, head high and chin up.

Leo looked a little dumbstruck, like he didn't know what had just happened. "You chose me," he said. The way he spoke sounded like he was in some kind of a daze.

"Of course I did!" I said.

"But why?" He asked me.

It took a while for me to contemplate that. What _had _I chosen him over Percy? It wasn't because he was more heroic or brave. Both of them seemed to be at the same level in the courage department. It wasn't that Leo was more handsome than Percy. In fact, he kind of looked like an elf. And it wasn't that he was funnier than Percy because they seemed to crack the same kind of jokes and use the same type of stupid humor. I racked my brain. I didn't know what it was exactly. I suppose it was partly the way Leo got on my nerves, but there was something else...

I suddenly realized it with flash. It was because Leo came back for me on Ogygia. All of the other heroes that had ever shown up on my island had only stayed for a limited amount of time, and then they disappeared from my life , Drake, Percy. They all left me for their real girlfriends, and they broke my heart each time. The only one that had ever come back for me was Leo. He had broken the curse, and had rescued me from that island. He had kept his promise to come back for me, and even swore it on the River Styx.

I turned to him and smiled. "Because you kept your word," I said. "You came back for me like none of the others did. You truly cared for me."

Leo seemed a little uncomfortable, and shifted his feet. "Well, that's me, Sunshine," he said, spreading his arms wide. I laughed at his pathetic attempt at a joke, then leaned over and kissed him again. It was a shorter kiss, and I was sad when Leo broke it off.

"Well, ready to meet the others?" He asked. I nodded, and he slowly steered Festus down to the ground.

**Annabeth's POV**

I watched as Leo and Calypso kissed with a little smile on my face. They were such a cute couple together and I was glad Leo had gone back to Ogygia to get her before he came back here. I was also glad for another thing, but that was my business. I had seen the way that Calypso had looked at Percy and gone pale. I had also heard the whole conversation between Calypso and Leo, and was just glad that she had chosen Leo. From Percy's stories about the time he was stuck on Ogygia, Calypso had seemed like a nice person, but if she started flirting with Percy... well, let's just say it's not a pleasant thing to have a daughter of Athena as an enemy.

Leo and Calypso sat down on Festus, and Leo slowly and carefully guided Festus down towards the ground. They landed with a huge thump, and as soon as they were on the grass of the hill, they were swarmed with demigods. Percy and I pushed our way up from the back of the crowd to the front. I grabbed Leo and and gave him a hug while Percy slapped him on the back. Calypso stood a little off to the side, and watched our reunion with a slight smile on her face, although she looked uncomfortable. She kept sneaking glances at Percy, and furrowing her forehead. She looked nervous.

I finally let Leo out of of the bone-crushing hug I was giving him and punched him hard in the arm. "Ow?" He exclaimed. "What was that for?"

"Do you think I'm an idiot?" I hissed at him. "Rescuing Calypso from Ogygia doesn't take three whole months! _Where_ on Gaea have you been this whole time?"

Leo rubbed his shoulder. "Yeah, well, after I took the physician's cure, I arrived at Calypso's island. I think it took Festus about a week to actually find it though, right buddy?" Leo looked at Festus for an answer and got a chorus of squeaks, creaks, and groans back. Leo was the only one that could actually understand Festus and it drove me crazy. I had been trying to learn the bronze dragon's mechanical language on the _Argo II_, but it was hard to pick up, even for me. And of course, I couldn't practice it since then because Festus had been with Leo, out crusading gods know where.

Leo nodded his head at every sound Festus made. When he was done with their dialogue, Leo turned to us. "Right. So, it took about a week to get to Ogygia and just before we arrived there, Festus gave me the physician's cure and resurrected me. Then, after we picked up Calypso"-Leo sent Calypso a huge grin, and she smiled shyly back.-"We returned to civilization. I showed Calypso around the modern world and explained what things like iPods, computers, the Internet, tablets, technology, and Google were. It took a while since she has been trapped on that island for about a millennia. I'm surprised that she even caught on this fast. Hazel's been alive for more than a year and even she doesn't get all the concepts of the modern world yet."

Calypso smiled. "I adapt to things very easily, though I must admit, there are still some things about this world that I do not yet understand. Leo has shown me so many incredible things, and some of them are so extreme, that I can't quite quite believe them. He's taken me to so many places." Her dark eyes shone, reminiscing all the wonderful places she has been.

"Where exactly have you gone?" I asked, curious.

"Well," Calypso thought about it for a minute. "I don't remember all of the places we've been, but I do have some favorites. I loved the Eiffel Tower, because it was so romantic at night and the Great Pyramid of Giza because it showed how hard the ancient people worked to build it. I also loved the Taj Mahal and the Colosseum. The replica of the Parthenon in Tennessee was also quite nice, however, it was nothing compared to the real thing in Athens; even if it was in ruins when we visited it. Leo also showed me around San Francisco, Phoenix, Boston, Rome, New Delhi, Hong Kong, Athens, Shanghai, Madrid, Paris, Cairo, and New York. We got lost several times. They were all so spectacular, I almost fainted when I saw them. The world has progressed quite a lot since I had last been here."

At every single word Calypso uttered, my mouth dropped open more and more until I almost thought it would touch the ground. Finally, when she was finished with her speech, I asked in downright disbelief. "You saw all of those things and went to all of those famous places? Really?"

Calypso laughed at my expression. "Yes," she said, smiling as little.

"Wow," Percy said in amazement. I tried to speak, but I couldn't say anything. I was in complete shock. I've always wanted to go to all those places, especially to Athens to see the Parthenon because it was the place where my mother's statue, the Athena Parthenos, used to stand before the Romans carried it off. It had always been my dream to travel to Greece, and I must admit, I was kind of jealous that Calypso and Leo had gotten to see it.

I found my voice and asked Calypso, "What was the most interesting monument you've seen so far?"

"Well." She thought about it for a while. "I'm not really sure. I've been to all kinds of places and seen all kinds of things in the last three months, most of the cities just seem to blend together in my memory. I really liked the Parthenon, of course, and the Colosseum. The pyramids were also quite fascinating and the Great Wall of China amazed me. However, I also admired the Hoover Dam very much."

"Wait," Percy said, making the timeout gesture with his hands. "You went to Hoover Dam? When did you you do that?"

"Dude, we were just there about a week ago. Why?" Leo asked.

"Did you find the dam snack bar?" He asked, smiling. Everyone else around him looked baffled and confused, including me. I had no idea what he was talking about, and this wasn't the first time he had mentioned something like this. If memory served me correctly, which it I, he had also said something similar in New Rome right before Leo had blown up half the city while possessed by an eidolon.

"Percy, what on Gaea are you talking about?" I asked, completely bewildered.

"What?" He looked around at everyone standing next to him. Everybody looked lost, and his face took on an understanding expression as he came to the realization that nobody had any clue what he was talking about. "Oh. You guys wouldn't get it."

I ground my teeth together. I hated not knowing something. "Fine," I growled. I turned to Leo and Calypso. "We should bring you guys to to the Big House. We were just going to go play a game of capture-the-flag before you guys made your dramatic entrance, but I supposed we will have to postpone it for a little while."

"Wait," Leo said, starting to look excited. "Can Calypso and I play? Please?"

"Yeah!" Percy exclaimed. "You can be on my team, Leo! Your cabin is!" They high fived, both grinning from ear to ear.

"Fine," I said, a little begrudgingly. "If that's the case, then Calypso will be on my team."

"Is she even allowed to play?" Someone from the crowd asked, stirring up a few mumbles, and puzzled looks.

"I'll have to ask Chiron about that," I said, addressing the crowd. "In the mean time, why don't you head down to the woods?"

There were a few complaints, but of course, nobody argued with me. All of the campers headed down to the forest. I turned to Calypso and Leo.

"Let's go find Chiron," I said, and we headed towards the Big House.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hi, I'm back! Thank you for that wonderful review! To answer your question, yes, I am twelve. I turn thirteen in August. Anyway, this is an extra long chapter for you since my friend will not be able to post another over April Break. However, expect one at least on the Monday or Tuesday after. By the way, this story will probably be four chapters long, but it depends on the way I write and how the story line goes.**

**Disclaimer: I cannot take credit for the PJO series (though I wish I could). They, along with HOO, belong to Rick Riordan.**

Annabeth's POV (continued)

After Leo had shrunk Festus into a suitcase and dropped him off at Cabin Nine, we walked to the Big House. However, Chiron wasn't there, so we headed down to to forest to look for him. We found him in the woods, about to start the capture-the-flag game. As we walked up to him, whispers and hisses immediately began to fly around the group of campers assembled near him. Chiron himself looked lost for words when we walked up to him with Leo and Calypso in tow. I doubt he's seen anything like this in his whole career as a teacher.

Before we could say anything to Chiron or offer any explanation whatsoever, a loud voice from the gathering of demigods suddenly shouted out, "LEO VALDEZ! WHERE IN HADES HAVE YOU BEEN? YOU HAD US WORRIED SICK!"

A very angry Piper pushed her way out of the crowd, dragging Jason behind her, and stormed up to Leo. Leo looked like he was on his way to his execution, which he probably was. He was absolutely terrified. Piper let go of Jason's hand, and marched up to Leo until she was standing right in front of him. "WE THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD! IN FACT, NICO AND HAZEL BOTH FELT YOUR DEATH! WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?"

Leo smiled weakly. "Hey, Beauty Queen," he said feebly.

"WELL?" Piper demanded.

Jason took Piper's hand. "Piper, let him explain," he said.

"Fine." Piper gave Leo a murderous look, but she didn't start yelling at him again. She just waited with an expectant look on her face for his explanation. Jason also looked curious to hear Leo's story.

"Well, after I; you know, died, Festus searched for Ogygia. It took him a while, but he finally found it, and gave me the physician's cure right before we landed there. Then I picked up Calypso and explained what a lot of modern things were to her, and showed her around. After we did that, we came back here."

"And that took three months to do?" Piper inquired, raising one of her eyebrows.

"Well, yeah," Leo said. He shuffled his feet uncomfortably at the look Piper was giving him. "We went to a lot of places."

"But they didn't find the dam snack bar," Percy muttered to himself.

I smiled at that, and then turned to Chiron. "Chiron, Leo and Calypso have asked to play capture-the-flag. Is that okay?"

"Well, my dear," Chiron began. "I guess they can play if they wish. There is a rule that states none of the gods or nymphs may play in the game. But since Calypso is technically a Titaness rather than a god, I suppose she can participate."

Leo turned and smiled at Calypso. She returned the gesture.

"Which team are they going to be on?" Jason asked.

"We've already arranged that," I said. "Leo will be on your team, and Calypso will be on mine."

"Great!" Jason exclaimed. "We're going to win!"

I rolled my eyes. "In your dreams. We're going to crush you."

Leo said, "No way! You're going the ones who are going to get crushed!"

"If that's the case, then you're going to get creamed." Piper said.

"Well, you're going to burn."

"Leo, that doesn't even make sense."

"It does to me."

"Can we please get back on track?" I asked. "We have to start the game soon."

"Can we do it in fifteen minutes?" Percy asked. "I have something urgent I need to do."

"Very well," Chiron said. He nodded, and Percy took off into the forest. Jason, Piper, Leo, Calypso, and I followed him. We had to run keep up with him.

"Percy, where are you going?" I called out. I had no idea what he was planning to do, and why he had run into the forest to do it.

"Just wait."

We followed Percy for about five minutes. He showed no sign of stopping, and seemed determined to do whatever it was on his mind. After a couple more minutes, he finally slowed down and eventually stopped. None of us were out of breath, but I was really irritated at him. Nothing like taking a eight minute sprint into the forest, blindly following your boyfriend.

Once I stopped running, I looked around at my surroundings. We were in a small clearing. In front of us was a stream, and behind us stood the side of the forest we had emerged from. Across from the brook lay another section of the woods. I recognized this place. This was the place where Percy had been claimed during his fist capture-the-flag game. I smiled at that memory. Then my smile faded when I remembered the hellhound, and who had summoned it.

Piper turned to face Percy. "I recognize this place. This is the border line for capture-the-flag. Why are we here?"

I was thinking about the same thing and probably so was everyone else, but Percy didn't answer. He just turned to the stream, raised his hand, and summoned some of the water to rise from its banks. It obeyed, following his command. Percy then bent it into a ten foot wall of towering water. The last bits of sunlight from the day streamed through the leaves of the trees growing across the river and into the barrier of water. When the rays of light penetrated the water wall, it created a rainbow in midair. I immediately understood what Percy was doing, and reached into the pocket of my jeans.

Percy also searched his pockets, but apparently he came up with nothing because he turned to us. "Do any of you guys have a drachma?" He asked. I knew he would not find anything, so I had already taking the liberty of finding one for him. I handed Percy the coin before anyone else could search for one, and he took it, giving me a smile. I smirked back at him, muttering, "Seaweed Brain," under my breath. He didn't hear it, and turned back to his makeshift water wall.

He threw the drachma into the the rainbow, and said, "Oh, Iris, goddess of the rainbow, accept my offering. Show me Frank and Hazel at Camp Jupiter." The rainbow shimmered, and we all waited in a semicircle around the reflection of light as the image of Frank and Hazel came into view.

Hazel's POV (surprised?)

Frank and I were at a Senate meeting when suddenly, a huge image of Percy, Annabeth, Jason, and Piper appeared in the center of the domed room. The moment it materialized, my jaw dropped and I jumped out of my seat, and ran towards the center of the room. The whole Senate gasped in surprise when they spotted it. I saw Frank leap out of his seat at the head of the room. We met at the mirage at the same moment, and turned to converse with our friends through the Iris message.

What I didn't notice until I was right in front of the illusion was that there were two other people in the background. Leo and Calypso stood a little ways away behind the cluster of our friends at the front of the image. The moment I saw them, especially Leo, my jaw gaped. I had never met Calypso-in fact, I've never even seen her, but I recognized her from the description Leo had given me when I drew the picture of her back on the Argo II. She had long, amber colored hair that was kept together in a braid, and dark eyes; almost as dark as Reyna's, but not quite. She was wearing an ancient Greek chiton, with a golden rope belt cinched around her waist, and had sandals on her feet.

I was speechless. I could hardly say a word. I looked over at Frank and saw he was also staring at Leo like he was an extraterrestrial being from outer space. I smiled at that thought, and turned back to the Iris message. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Reyna approach the image and stand behind us. Her jaw opened slightly when she saw Leo, but she quickly closed it and put on her signature blank expression. As one of the praetors of the Twelfth Legion, I could understand why she would have to be in control at all times, but I couldn't understand why she always had to be expressionless. I guess there were some things that no one could ever figure out about Reyna. I could respect that.

Leo was the first one to speak. "Hey Hazel and Frank, nice dresses!"

"Leo!" Jason exclaimed.

"What?" He asked, trying to look as innocent as possible. It didn't work.

Frank sputtered in indignation while I gave him my best death glare which from a child of Pluto should be plenty scary. "These aren't dresses, Leo! They are Roman style togas!

"Yeah, whatever." Leo said, waving his hand dismissively. Then he spotted Frank and his eyes instantly brightened with mischief. "Are you wearing your bedsheets?"

"Shut up," Frank muttered. I put my arm around him. There was an awkward pause.

"Hey Frank, Hazel, and Reyna," Annabeth said, breaking the silence. She looked around the Senate room in awe, and I suddenly realized that she had never seen the inside of it. "Wow," she whispered to herself, peering at every single inch of the building. After she had made a careful inspection of every architectural characteristic and design in the room, she turned and addressed us. "Sorry to disrupt your Senate meeting. I didn't think you guys would be having one this late in the afternoon." It was nearly dark in Long Island, and the sun in the distance was just a little sliver of fiery light on the horizon.

"Yes, well, we did start the discussion this morning, but it has taken a little longer to agree on this decision than I would have liked," Reyna said tartly.

Annabeth nodded once, and didn't ask what the conversation was about which I was grateful for. The debate we had been conversing before the five other demigods and Calypso had interrupted us hadn't been all that a pleasant, or that comfortable, so I was glad that they had tried to contact us at this moment.

"So, how are things on your side of the country?" Frank asked them.

"Well, everything's good here." Percy said. "Leo showed up about twenty minutes ago, and nearly scared us all out of our wits. Leo, tell them your story."

So Leo told us how Festus had resurrected him by giving him the physician's cure after he had died in the explosion while battling Gaea, and how he had rescued Calypso. He told us how he had explained to Calypso everything about the modern world, and how he had taken her everywhere and showed her all kinds of famous structures and landmarks. He said that Calypso had accepted all of the changes that had happened in the millennia she had been imprisoned on Ogygia surprisingly well which I could hardly believe. Most of the things in this age of the world still amazed and astounded me to no end.

"So that's what happened," Leo concluded. "And then I suggested to Calypso that we travel to Camp Half-Blood and she said yes. That was this morning. So we flew to camp after breakfast and here we are."

"Cool," Frank said. "So what are you doing now?"

"Well," Piper said. "We're going to play a game of capture-the-flag. We would ask you guys to join us, but the game starts in about five minutes and there's no way you could get here in time."

"That's alright," I said. "Anyway, even if we wanted to, we couldn't play. We still have to finish this Senate meeting."

"Okay," Annabeth said a little sadly. "We should get back to Chiron. We only said that we would be gone for about fifteen minutes and the rainbow connecting us is about to disappear. It's almost dusk."

"Well, bye!" Frank said.

"Goodbye!" I said.

"Until next time," Reyna told them. "Say hello to Nico for me."

I gave Reyna a scruciating look, but she purposely didn't meet anybody's eyes, especially mine. However, when I got a glimpse of her face, I saw it was red and a little flushed. I could tell that she was slightly embarrassed. Reyna usually wore a mask that covered up her emotions, and I was intrigued and surprised that she had let it slip so easily, especially in front of the Senate. Perhaps it was a mistake, but I couldn't shake the memory of it out of my mind.

The five other demigods and Calypso all waved their goodbyes, and then the image of them slowly disappeared. After a few seconds, even the slightest trace of the mirage had vanished from the air.

I walked back to my seat. Reyna and Frank did the same at the head of the room. A senator started to talk about the issue we had been discussing before we were interrupted, and I quickly grew bored with it. I wished I was at Camp Half-Blood, playing capture-the-flag. Anything was better than this.

Nico's POV

Chiron was just about to start the game when Percy, Annabeth, Jason, Piper, Leo, and Calypso came running out of the woods and into the clearing we were standing in. Almost everyone was surprised at their rushed entrance, but Chiron just merely raised an eyebrow, and continued with the speech he was annunciating, "The stream is the border line between the two teams. All weapons and magical items are allowed. I will serve as the referee in this game. Please avoided any killing or maiming to other campers. All demigods may use any sort of powers they wish." He fixed his eyes on me. "Just abstain from any fatal injuries or death."

Will leaned in towards me and whispered, "No death stuff, di Angelo. Doctor's orders."

"Oh, come on," I complained. "That might be the only way we can win."

Will shrugged, but he didn't look all that remorseful. "Disobey my commands, and you're going to be stuck in the hospital in the Big House for a week."

I scowled at him. "But what about-"

"No buts," Will interrupted me. "No raising the dead, no turning people into ghosts, no killing the grass around you; nothing. And above all, no shadow traveling. You are not to even allowed to connect some mice bones together. Understand?"

"Fine," I muttered angrily, but I didn't really mean it.

Will eyed me distrustfully. "I'll be watching you. Don't even think about doing something even remotely death-related because if you do, I'll find out."

I gave a sigh. "Alright. I won't unless I'm in mortal danger."

Will gave me a glare. Apparently, even that wasn't good enough for him. "No death stuff." He said.

"No death stuff." I repeated. Will gave a nod, and turned back to listen to Chiron.

"The teams playing against each other today are the blue team which consists of the Athena, Aphrodite, Nike, Demeter, Ares, Hermes, Dionysus, and Nemesis cabins," Chiron paused while the blue team yelled with excitement. "And the red team which consists of the Poseidon, Zeus, and Hades cabins along with the Apollo, Hephaestus, Iris, Hecate, and Hypnos cabins." My team screamed into the night while I watched the spectacle with annoyance. "Each team has ten minutes to hide their flag. Remember, there must be only two guards protecting each. The conch horn will be blown when it is time to start the game."

With that last note, the blue team ran into the forest, eager to hide their flag and start the game. I watched as Annabeth gave Percy a passionate kiss before she darted away to join the other campers on the opposing team. Our team just gathered in the clearing and watched as Chiron galloped into the forest towards the border. After he had vanished into the undergrowth, I turned to the rest of my team who had begun argue about where we should hide our flag.

"We should hide it up a tree," an Apollo camper stated.

"No way!" A Hephaestus camper called. "It would be too unprotected up there."

"The Apollo cabin could protect it," Will suggested.

"But we are only allowed to have two guards," Jason said.

"We could always set traps around it," another Hephaestus kid pointed out.

"What if they malfunction?" A Hecate camper wondered.

"Are you insulting our handiwork?" The same Hephaestus camper growled.

"O-of course not!" The Hecate kid stuttered, a little fearfully.

"Why don't we have the Hecate cabin disguise it with the Mist?" Asked an Iris camper.

"Is there anyone on the other team that is good with seeing through illusions?" An Apollo guy said.

"Anyone can see through our illusions as longer as they know they are there," Lou Ellen said.

"Which would be probably everyone," Percy groaned.

"Huh?" Clovis awoke was a start. "Do you need me to do something?"

"Go back to sleep, Clovis."

"Actually," Jason said, startling everybody. "I have a question to ask you. Can you put people to sleep?"

"What?" Clovis inquired, already drifting off to sleep again. He was leaning on a trunk of an oak tree, and using his hands as a pillow. I had no idea how he could sleep like that, since it must have been very uncomfortable, but he was already halfway to Dreamland, so that wasn't my main concern at the moment. I quickly elbowed him in the ribs and he sat up with a snort. "Yeah! What is it?"

Jason repeated his question while I made sure that Clovis stayed awake. When he was finished, Clovis slid down to the ground and sat on the forest floor, propping his head up with his hand. "Mmm, well, I can't really. At least, I've tried before and I'm really kind of bad at it. I also don't like to do it a lot. When you influence someone to fall asleep, it takes away so much of your energy that normal Hypnos demigods usually fall into a coma for at least three hours after using it." Clovis yawned, and I poked him to make sure he stayed awake. "But that's only if you overexert yourself. It you don't, well..." Clovis put his head on his knees and started to snore. I decided to leave him there.

"So, can anyone else from the Hypnos cabin use that power?" Jason asked, looking around our little group.

"Well, I can," said a small voice from the back of the crowd.

The demigods all parted to reveal a small, lithe girl. She had light brown hair that came down to her shoulders, and icy blue eyes. I had trouble believing she was even related to Clovis because she looked absolutely nothing like him. The girl had pixie-like features and had a quiet, drowsy aura that surrounded her. She looked nervous that she had spoken aloud, and fidgeted slightly. She tried smiling, but she was so terrified she couldn't keep it up. She looked like she was fourteen years old, but was short for her age.

"What's your name?" Percy asked.

"My-my name is M-Melissa." The girl said. She purposely didn't meet Percy's or anybody else's eyes. She looked down at her feet, and ground the toe of her shoe into the dirt. She kicked some pine needles into some bushes, and tried to look as small as possible, which wasn't easy when everybody's attention was on you.

"Can you put people to sleep?" Jason inquired.

"Yes," Melissa said without hesitation.

"Okay," Jason said, turning around. Everybody on our team gathered around him in a circle. "Here's the plan. Half of the Apollo cabin will travel to the border to prevent the blue team from progressing into our part of the woods. Hide in the trees or do whatever you have to, but just stay out of sight. The rest of the cabin, plus Leo, and the Iris and Hypnos cabins will dwell further back in the forest and protect the flag from the middle of our territory. Percy, Butch, and half the Hephaestus and Hecate cabins will approach the blue team's territory from the left. Melissa, Lou Ellen, the other half of the Hephaestus and Hecate cabins, and I will do the same with the right. The Hecate campers can disguise us as we sneak around, trying to find their flag. We will meet in the middle of their territory, disarm all the guards, and carry the flag across the border. Everyone got that?"

All the campers nodded at the plan. Not a single one disagreed, because they probably couldn't think of a better one.

"Alright," Percy said. "Now all that's left is the matter of where to hide our flag."

"Hold on," Leo said. "Who's going to be protecting the flag? We can only having two guards, you know? And how are we going to obtain the other team's flag?"

"Nico and I can guard our team's flag," Will suggested. Percy nodded. Will was probably only making that offer so he could keep an eye on me to make sure I didn't try any death stuff. I snorted.

"As for how we'll get the blue team's flag; that's easy," Jason said. "Melissa will make the other team's guard fall asleep, and while they're snoring, we'll get the flag."

I glanced at Melissa. She looked a little pale at the prospect of playing such an important role to her team, but she set her jaw determinedly. I recognized that look. It was the look of a young, unprepared, and inexperienced hero who had been called on to do something important, even world preserving. I should know. I had seen that look on Percy's face many times and on many others as well. I suppose even I had acquired that look on my face once or twice. Almost every demigod had, and others who had not would attain it in the not so distant future.

"Okay," I agreed. "But where are we going to hide our flag?"

"I've been thinking about that," Jason said. "We can't hide it up in a tree, and one of the Hecate campers can't disguise it with the Mist either. Although those are both good ideas, the other team has probably already thought them up by now and are prepared for both of them. We need to place our flag somewhere where the other team wouldn't think to look; somewhere secretive, hidden, and easy to defend." Jason looked at Percy. "I'm not coming up with anything. You've been at camp longer than me: do you have any good ideas?"

Perch shook his head. "Nothing really comes to mind." He looked at me. "Can you think of anything?"

As the matter of fact, I could think of something, but I didn't like the idea of it. "Well," I said. "There's this one place."

All the campers on our team perked up, and everyone turned to me. Lou Ellen frowned. "Is it in our territory?" She asked.

"Yes," I confirmed.

"Where and what is it?" Leo asked me.

"It's a small clearing a little east from here," I said, pointed to the right. "It is a very secluded place, and not many people have found it over the years. It is barely fifteen feet across, and a huge oak tree grows in the middle of it, surrounded by cedars. The oak would be the perfect place to hide the flag."

"You're right," Jason said, nodding. "Let's use that clearing as our flag's hiding spot." He handed me the flag. It was white with the emblems of a lighting bolt, trident, and skull on the front of it. He gestured to Will and some of the Apollo kids and about one or two Hephaestus kids including Leo, and they stepped up next to me. "One of the Apollo campers can plant the flag at the top of the tree. The Hephaestus campers can place traps near the clearing for extra security. They should be able to get all the materials they need for them from Leo's tool belt. The rest of you, head into the part of the forest you're supposed to be in. Those who are in either my patrol or Percy's, wait here for a moment."

The kids nodded, and were about to leave when Leo suddenly shouted out, "Hey! I figured it out!"

We all turned back to face him. "What did you figure out?" Percy asked.

"Our team name!" Leo exclaimed. "We can ourselves Team Leo!" He spread his arms wide, as if expecting applause, but he didn't get any. He took out a bottle of lime green spray paint from his tool belt, and turned to me.

"Oh, no you don't," I warned him. I was getting so edgy, I was about to summon a skeleton to attack Leo, but I saw Will shaking his head out of the corner of my eye and mouthing, "No." I ground my teeth together in frustration. I hated not being able to use my powers. I really wanted to shadow travel out of there, but if I did, I would have never heard the end of it from Will. Instead, I just sent Leo my strongest death glare, and to nobody's surprise, he immediately backed off.

"Umm," Leo faltered. "It was just an idea." He quickly put the spray paint away into his tool belt, and quickly tried to get as far away from me as possible. It was a wise decision.

I smiled coldly. "Anyone else have any more ideas for our team name?" When nobody answered, I smirked. I looked down, and saw the ground around me being drained of color. The grass was already brown, and it was starting to turn white with frost. Will was shaking his head at me and wagging his finger, so I quickly let go of my anger. There was another thing I hated even more than not using my powers: being stuck in the hospital.

"Great," Jason said. He smiled like nothing in the world was wrong. "Okay everybody, go to your assigned stations. Those who are on either Percy's or my patrol, follow us. The game is about to begin."

Piper's POV

Annabeth caught up with me before I crossed the boundary line which, ironically, happened to be the stream we were at earlier today. "Hey," I said as she jogged up to me. "Got a battle plans?"

Annabeth grinned at me. "Oh, yeah," she said, with a malicious gleam in her eye. "I've got one alright."

"Great," I said. "What is it?"

She put a finger on her lips. "Not now," she whispered. "Wait until we get into our territory."

We ran across the border, and deeper into the forest. Soon, we entered the clearing that everybody was gathering in. Annabeth and I pushed our way to the front of the crowd, and Annabeth turned to the other campers.

"Okay," she said. "Here's the plan. The red team will probably have two attack groups headed into our territory from two different sides. I bet anything in my cabin that they will contain either Percy, Jason, Leo, Nico, or more than one of them. That means our plan has to be focused mainly of defense, and secretive offense."

The campers all nodded. Her explanation was logical.

"I can't come up with a good spot where the other team can hide their flag, so it will probably be located somewhere not very well known by other people," Annabeth said. "The other team will have a good defense system so we have to be prepared to find the flag, and get out of their territory as fast as we can. So here's what we're going to do." All of the demigods leaned toward her, eager to hear the plan. "The Dionysus cabin will be stationed at the left of our territory on defense. The Nemesis cabin will proceed the same way on the right. Do whatever you have to in order to prevent the other team from getting past your defenses. Behind them, the Hermes cabin will be placed farther back on the left and the Demeter cabin will be placed further back on the right."

The demigods nodded and murmured among themselves. Annabeth continued to explain her master plan.

"If the red team gets past the first row of defenses, let them through." She paused when most of the campers complained at that announcement. She shot her fiercest glare at the people who whined the most, and they shut up almost immediately. Nobody wanted to cross Annabeth. She continued with her speech.

"The Ares cabin will be situated in a position right in front of the flag. Once the red team breaks through the first barrier, they will run straight into them. After that happens, both the Demeter and the Hermes cabins can corner, disarm, and send the trespassers to jail for the rest of the game. That agree with everyone?"

"Why do we have to be on defense?" Clarisse griped.

"Because that is the place you'll be needed the most," Annabeth said. "If we can make up a strong defense, then it is less likely the red team can push through our boundaries and get to the flag. Defense is one of the most important factors in a battle or war, Clarisse."

Clarisse scowled. "You're lecturing me about war? Have you forgotten who my father is, Miss Princess?"

Clarisse hadn't called Annabeth that in a long time, and Annabeth glowered at her. "No, I haven't," she said. "But my mother is the goddess of battle strategy. I know what I'll doing, Clarisse."

Clarisse sneered at that, but didn't continue disagree with her. "Why can't a different cabin be put on defense?"

"Believe me," Annabeth said. "For my plan to work, it's best if your cabin stays on defense. That is, if you want us to win."

Clarisse huffed. Even she wasn't stupid enough to keep arguing with Annabeth. "Fine," she mumbled moodily.

Annabeth continued with her speech. "The Aphrodite cabin will process across the border, and distract the other team's guards. A few of the Athena campers will go with them so that they don't get themselves pulverized. While the red team's guard are occupied, the Athena cabin and I will approach the enemy's territory from the right. A small troop of Nike campers will approach from the left. The Nike cabin will snoop around the territory secretly and find the flag. Once they do, they will give a signal to the Athena campers and together, they will retrieve the flag and head back across the border, winning the game." Annabeth declared. "Anyone got a problem with any of that?"

"Why, yes," I turned and saw Drew, the ex-counselor for the Aphrodite cabin push her way up to the front to the crowd. She crossed her arms, and pursed her lips. "Who gave you the idea to use my cabin as bait?"

Before Annabeth could respond, I rotated on my heel and turned to face her. "First of all," I began. "I am the head counselor for Aphrodite cabin, so it is my decision whether we proceed with this plan or not. Second of all, I think it's a great plan, and whether or not you agree or like it, my cabin is going to participate in it. If you have anything to complain about, you can step out of the game right now, head back to Cabin Ten, and go to bed. I won't stop you." I gestured with a hand toward the direction the cabins were in. The whole team was in utter silence. You could have heard a pine needle drop. Everybody was staring at us; clearing waiting for Drew's decision.

Drew curled her lip in disgust, but didn't leave. I stared at her for a few more seconds until she got so uncomfortable, she averted her eyes from my gaze. I turned back to Annabeth. "Who's going to guard the flag?" I asked.

Annabeth swallowed. "Well, I was hoping you'd be up to the challenge, Piper," she said. "I've also asked Malcolm, if that's okay with you?"

"Sure," I said. I was kind of disappointed that I wasn't going to go on offense with the rest of the Aphrodite campers, but I suppose I couldn't have everything. I could have used charmspeak to persuade Annabeth to allow me to not be stuck on defense, but I would never do that to her. I guess I would just have to ask Lacy and Mitchell to keep an eye on the cabin and Drew and be satisfied with that.

"What should I do?" Asked a voice from beside me. I turned in surprise and saw Calypso, her forehead scrunched up in deep thought, standing next to me.

Apparently, Annabeth also had forgotten about Calypso because she temporarily looked bewildered, and looked around to see who had spoken. Then she spotted Calypso, and her confused expression cleared. "Oh," she said. "Well, perhaps you can weave some traps. Percy said you're good with a loom." Calypso winced slightly at the mention of Percy's name. I could tell she was still a little sore from his rejection, and even though it had happened two years ago; seeing him again with another girl had brought back a flood of pain. I could tell.

"Alright," Calypso agreed. "Where should I put them?"

"Maybe you can place them around the border, by the river?" Annabeth suggested. Calypso nodded, and faded into the background.

"Okay, now the only other thing to discuss is where to put the flag."

"Hang on," somebody in the crowd said. "What will the signal be? You said the Nike cabin will send the Athena cabin a signal when they find the flag."

"Oh," Annabeth said. "Well, does anyone in the Nike cabin know Morse code?"

All of the Nike campers looked at each other in confusion. It was obvious they didn't. Annabeth sighed tiredly. "I guess we'll have to do this the old fashioned way," she said. "Once your cabin finds the flag, one of you guys will have to send us a messenger telling us that. And please, whoever's the emissary, try not to get caught. I suggest you send your fastest runner, just in case."

The four Nike campers that were at camp presently muttered among themselves; then looked to a tall, thin boy with brown hair. He had the stature of a runner and looked like he was fifteen years old. The boy groaned, and his shoulders slumped, but he nodded his head. "I'll be the messenger," he said.

"Great!" Annabeth said. "Now all we need to figure out if where to hide the flag. Got any idea, anyone?"

"Well," said Lacy. "We could hide it near Zeus's Fist."

"Are you kidding?" Asked an Aphrodite camper. "That place has be cursed ever since the death of Kampë. There is no way I'm getting within ten meters of that place, like, ever."

"But that's why it's a good place to hide the flag," Lacy argued. "Maybe the other team will be too scared to go near it, too."

"Oh, pleased." Clarisse snorted. "After all they've been through, I don't think a little superstition is going to frighten the Seven, especially Nico."

Lacy's shoulders sagged, and she slumped in disappointment. I put a hand on her arm. "It was a good idea," I told her kindly.

She sighed. "It was stupid."

I shook my head. "No it wasn't. I actually thought it was a really good idea."

Lacy perked up instantly. "Really?" She asked.

"Yes," I said. I smiled at her. "After all, it was a common place to put the flag before Kampë's death. Why should that change now? Everyone knew about it back then."

Lacy nodded. "You're right," she said. She ran up to Annabeth and whispered into her ear. Annabeth thought for a minute, then whispered something back. Lacy mumbled something under her breath, then turned around and ran back to me. Annabeth faced the crowd of campers again.

"Okay," she said. Everybody quieted down from the chatter they had been conducting, and turned to listen intently to her. "I've decided where we're going to hide the flag. We're going to keep it at Zeus's Fist."

Immediately, chaos ensued. Everybody started talking at once.

"That place is cursed!" Pollux shouted.

"No way," a Hermes camper breathed.

"Cool!" An Ares kid yelled.

"You're insane!" An Aphrodite camper screamed.

"Are you sure that place is safe?" Miranda inquired.

"Awesome!" A Nemesis camper declared.

"What?!" Drew screeched.

"Wow!" A Nike camper exclaimed.

I yelled at them with the charmspeak evident in my voice. "Quiet down!" Immediately, everyone fell silent.

Annabeth shot me a grateful look, and then turned back other crowd to address the group of demigods. "We're going to hide the flag on the top of Zeus's Fist," she repeated, pausing to allow anyone to voice their displeasure. No one did. "Piper and Malcolm will guard the flag. None of them have a problem with the rumors that have been circulating about it, I assume?" She looked at me, and I shook my head. She turned to her half-brother and he disconfirmed it as well.

"The rest of you won't have to go anywhere near it unless you want too. Now, I'll say this one more time. Does anyone have a problem with any of my plans?" No one answered, and Annabeth smiled. "Good. The game will start in three minutes. Piper and Malcolm, I'll go with you guys to hide the flag. Ares cabin, come with us too. Hermes and Dionysus, go left. Nemesis and Demeter, go right. Aphrodite, assemble at the border with Nike and Athena."

Everyone headed off with their cabins to their assigned positions. I followed Annabeth, Malcolm, and the Ares cabin deeper into the forest. We ran for about three minutes, and then entered another clearing. This one was bigger than the one we had previously been in. In the center of it stood a huge pile of rocks. I had once been told that it had looked like a fist, but now it basically resembled what it was: a gigantic collection of boulders. I could see nothing that important or significant about it, but I instantly knew it was Zeus's Fist.

Annabeth was carrying the flag. It was white and had the symbols of a dagger with a gray owl in the background. She clutched it with both hands. As soon as she saw Zeus's Fist, she began to walk towards it. Malcolm and I followed her with the Ares cabin trailing behind us cautiously.

Zeus's Fist was a huge structure about twelve feet high. It was surrounding by pine trees, and was almost as tall as them, but not quite. There was a large amount of rocks littered around it on the ground on the clearing. I smiled at the sight of tried to sprint straight to the flag would have to take the time to maneuver around them. That would work to our advantage.

I watched as Annabeth navigated around the boulders as gracefully as if she was dancing, and headed toward Zeus's Fist. No one followed her. She took the shortest possible route up to the structure, and as soon as she got there, she began to climb. She scaled the pile of boulders quickly and effectively. As soon as she got to the top, she planted the flag onto a rock and hurried back down to the ground. She ran back to us quickly, maneuvering around the rocks standed all across the clearing.

"Okay," she said, hardly out of breath. "That's that. Piper and Malcolm, it's your job to guard the flag. I suggest you stand underneath Zeus's Fist in order to watch it, but you don't have to. Ares cabin, you guys stay close to the clearing, but not to close. Guard the flag as best as you can, and make sure nobody gets through."

Clarisse gave Annabeth a curt nod, and lead her cabin back out of the clearing. I could tell she was still a little irritated at Annabeth by the way her emotions seemed to roll of her in waves. I guess it was a power of Aphrodite. Once they were gone, Annabeth grimaced, and then turned and gave me a smile.

"I should be going," she said. "It's almost time to start the game. See you later!"

"Bye!" I said.

She smiled again, and disappeared into the undergrowth. Malcolm and I cautiously made our way over to Zeus's Fist and stood underneath it. We waited for a minute or two. Then the conch horn blew and it was time to start the game.

**Like the ending? I added in a little Solangelo and Reynico. How'd I do? Also, do you like the two teams' strategies? Please review and tell me!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Hello, again! Sorry for the late update. I've been doing some other things and last week, I didn't really write that much. I am very sorry about that. Anyway, I hope this chapter will make it up to you guys. The game of capture-the-flag has finally started! Thank you to all those who have reviewed, faved, or followed my story. It means so much to me! **

**Disclaimer: I do not own the Percy Jackson series. They are the property of Rick Riordan.**

**Okay, enough with all the small talk. Read and enjoy.**

**Jason's POV**

The conch horn blew and the game began. My patrol and I were on the right side of our territory, staring across the stream into the other team's part of the forest. Faint figures moved subtly deep in the undergrowth, but I couldn't see them clearly enough to identify them. Lou Ellen was crunched on my right, while Melissa was sitting on the ground near my left. The rest of the Hecate and Hephaestus campers dwelled behind us, all of them trying to be as small and quiet as possible.

I looked over further to my left, and saw Percy and his patrol half hidden in the bushes and cattails by the brook. He gave me a slight nod, and a thumbs up. He indicated his head toward the patch of woods behind the border and I peered closely at it. Shapes moved through the leaves and trees of the forest. I squinted my eyes at them and adjusted my Imperial Gold glasses. I could just barely make out the figures of a crew of Aphrodite campers.

I turned back to Percy and raised my eyebrows. I pointed straight at them, trying to be as silent as possible so they wouldn't detect us. 'Should we ambush them?' I mouthed in his direction, praying he would understand. Percy stared at the Aphrodite kids for a minute or two. His forehead furrowed, but he shook his head no. I turned to my patrol and quietly whispered, "No," to the Hephaestus guy who had drawn his sword. He looked annoyed, but sheathed his sword and settled back down on the ground.

Percy and I watched as the Aphrodite campers assembled themselves and crossed the border. As they waded through the stream, they tried to keep their clothes dry, but it was futile. The water from the brook came up to most of their thighs and they kept complaining about how they were going to get hypothermia and die. They were so loud that my patrol and I could hear them as clearly, as if they were talking right to us.

I looked over at Percy. 'Think they'll see us?' I mouthed.

He turned towards me. 'No, I don't think so. Let them pass by. I see some Athena kids.'

I looked over at the direction he was staring at and saw he was right. In the back, hidden from our view by the Aphrodite campers stood about six Athena campers. I pressed myself closer to the ground, and gestured for my patrol to do the same. Then I prayed like crazy that we were hidden from their view.

After a few minutes, I mustered up the courage to look back at the stream. I saw Percy and his team flattened on the bank of the river. He put his finger to his lips and with the other hand, pointed back at the brook. I turned just in time to see the last few Aphrodite kids slip into the forest on our side of the border, and disappear into the undergrowth.

My team and I waited for about three minutes until I was sure they were gone. Then I rose from the pine needle strewn ground. Quietly and carefully, my patrol and I walked over to the area where Percy and his team were hidden. As soon as I got there, Percy jumped out of the bushes and turned to face me.

"It was a trap," he whispered to me. "I could tell. You never send a whole cabin on offense like that in such a bold way. I wish we could warn the campers on defense, but there's no time. We have to continue with the plan."

"Yes," I said. "That's what I thought, too."

Percy smirked. "Three guesses who thought that up."

I smiled back at him. It wasn't hard to guess that it was Annabeth who had thought up the plan.

Percy turned back in the direction of the woods as off he were checking to see we were alone and nobody was sneaking up on us. "I didn't spot Piper in the crowd," he mumbled to me. "She must be stationed somewhere else. Be careful."

I nodded to him and Percy turned to his team. "Come on," he said to them. Then they quickly crossed the stream, and disappeared into the forest.

I turned to my own team. "Let's go," I whispered. Together, we crossed the brook. The water from it was freezing, and the river water came to just above my knees. I wanted to get out of the stream as soon as I possibly could, but I made myself slow down. I waded through the water as quickly as I could. I felt relieved when I stepped onto the land on the other side. Water was definitely not my element and the cold had only made it worse.

I waited until most of my patrol had emerged from the stream, and then turned in the direction of the woods. From my left and from behind me, I could hear the loud, clanging sounds of swords banging against shields, and the shouts and cries as the two teams fought against each other on both sides of the border. Quietly, so that we didn't attract any attention, my team and I slipped into the forest on the other team's territory. It was almost dusk outside so it was kind of hard to see in the woods, but somehow, we managed.

Shadows grew longer the more time we spent in the forest. Soon, it was almost pitch black. I could see perfectly because of my Imperial Gold glasses, but the other campers on my team were obviously having trouble. Every few seconds, someone stumbled on a root mumbling curses as they fell, or bumped into a tree. I was starting to regret not putting Leo on my patrol. His fire powers could have been useful in a time like this.

We were barely making any progress in the dark woods. I figured by the time we even encountered the other team, we'd be so discombobulated from sight distortion that we would end up attacking a tree instead of the enemy. What a laugh that would be to the other team.

I leaned over and whispered to Lou Ellen. "Can you do anything to allow us to see in the dark better?"

She looked at me. "Well, I can't do anything about the sunlight. But I can do this." She waved her hand and instantly, two torches appeared. They were long with braided handles, and made from some kind of plant or reed. The fire located on the top of them burned a deep, dark red; more like the embers in a fireplace than the flames themselves. She handed one of the torches to me, and kept one for herself.

The torches lit up the woods, and the light they provided illuminated trees that were yards away. I was glad that we had them because we could now see where we were going, and people stopped tripping over their own feet and bonking their heads on the trunks of trees. And that was probably the first mistake I made.

I was so caught up in the happiness and relief that my team was able to see and was no longer stumbling around, completely lost in the dark that I wasn't paying attention to where my patrol and I were going. And so, like an idiot, we ran straight into an ambush. One minute we were in the woods, heading deeper into forest toward the other team's flag and the next, we were in a clearing with the whole Hermes cabin in front of us. I heard a commotion, a few rustles coming from behind us, and a small yelp. I turned around and spotted the Dionysus cabin standing there with their swords drawn.

"Schist," I swore under my breath while silently berating myself for being so stupid. With one hand, I silently withdrew my _gladius_, and prepared myself for a fight. I planted the torch I had been carrying into the ground at my feet. All around me, the other campers on my patrol did the same. The Hephaestus campers unsheathed their swords. The Hecate kids took out their daggers with one hand. They lifted the other into the air and a fiery ball of bright blue energy materialized on each of their palms. Even Melissa got out her knife but her hands were shaking so badly, I doubted she could even hold onto it, much less use it.

The Hermes and Dionysus cabins closed in and my patrol bunched together. For a moment, there was complete and utter silence, and then the fight began. Immediately, about four guys: two from Dionysus and two from Hermes approached me. The first guy swung his sword at my stomach, but I easily step sided the blow. I hit him over the head with my sword and he got knocked out cold. The second guy tried to get under my guard with a strike to my side, but I parried his move and quickly knocked him out too. The two guys from the Dionysus cabins were good. They attacked me together, leaving me no time to rest in between their blows. It was hard, trying to both attack and defend myself against two experienced demigods. We fought for about six minutes until I found their weakness. By then, I was sweating pretty hard, and perspiration was already forming on my brow.

When the two guys attacked me, I saw that their defense was a little weaker. They spent so much time trying to land a blow on me that when I retaliated, they were caught a little off guard. I used that to my advantage and quickly dealt a blow to one of the Dionysus kids. He blocked it, and before they could attack again, I sent a strike towards his comrade. The kid was surprised at my sudden moment and had no time to defend himself. My sword hit his bronze breastplate with a _clang_! The blow sent him staggering backward. I turned to the other kid and he slowly backed up. I changed to offense and attacked him. The kid tried to parry and dodge my blows, they were so quick he could barely protect himself. I feinted to the right, moving as if I was about to land a strike on his side, and his sword immediately changed from the direction it had been aiming at to cover the area. At the last moment, I turned to the left and knocked him in the head with the butt of my sword. The boy crumpled.

I smiled, handling my Imperial Gold _gladius_. I was getting better at the Greek fighting style. I looked around at my patrol, and was relieved when they seemed to be taking care of themselves just fine. The Hecate cabin were lobbing their blue spheres at anyone who got close to them. The moment they landed on the ground or hit someone, anyone within a three foot radius got turned into ferret or a weasel. Pretty soon, there were tons of those little rodents running all over the place. The Hephaestus campers were fighting with their swords and were slashing and hacking away at anyone who crossed their paths. But the person surprised me the most was Melissa. I couldn't spot her at first and was afraid she had run off without us, or had gotten lost, but I eventually located her in the midst of the battle. She was standing on her feet and fighting with her knife, with a fierce expression on her face. I was surprised. She was actually pretty good. As I watched, she took on a Hermes camper singlehandedly and knocked him out. She swept the hair out of her eyes and looked up. She must have seen me watching her because she turned a deep red and I could tell from her face that her self confidence had fallen.

While she was distracted, a Dionysus camper snuck up behind her. He raised his sword above his head and I started to yell, "Watch out!" but it was too late. The blow came down towards her head, but she dodged it just in time, thanks to her ADHD. Melissa turned back to the Dionysus camper and brandished her knife in a defensive position. They began to fight, and Melissa could barely hold him off. I was considering calling down lightning to help her when the Dionysus kid suddenly disarmed her with a quick twist of his blade. Melissa stood there, completely unprotected with a sword pointed at her chest.

I assessed the situation before me and thrust my fist into the air. Thunder rumbled in the distance and I was just about to call down lightning when something stopped me right in my tracks. Melissa had turned to face the Dionysus camper. Her light blue eyes had locked onto his and her forehead was furrowed in concentration. Time seemed to slow down as Melissa continued to stare at the camper. Then something began to happen. The Dionysus kid's eyes began to droop as though he was about to fall asleep. Melissa touched the kid's temple with her thumb, and his eyes closed. Within seconds, he was fast asleep.

Melissa looked up at the crowd surrounding her. She must have just realized that all of the fighting had stopped and everyone was staring at her. She blushed slightly, and turned to pick up her knife from where she had dropped it on the ground. I could clearly see from her face that she was extremely embarrassed.

I looked around, evaluating the area around us. Most of the campers from the cabins who had ambushed us were either knocked unconscious or too incapacitated to fight (a.k.a: turned into ferrets or weasels). I turned to Lou Ellen and asked, "Are the campers who were turned into rodents going to be okay?"

She gave me a smile and said, "Yes. The transformation spell should wear off in about an hour. That should give us enough time to get the flag."

I nodded to her. "Okay," I said. I turned back to my team. "Let's get going."

We headed straight back into the forest. Lou Ellen held the two torches in her hands. We walked deeper into the forest for a few minutes. I still held my sword in my hand as an extra precaution. I didn't want to get ambushed a second time.

We were traveling farther into the woods when a loud and rather obnoxious voice spoke, "And where do you think you're going, punk?"

I turned to face where the voice had come from, and I instantly knew who it was. "Oh, Styx," I swore. "We are so dead."

Clarisse laughed at me as the Area cabin materialized out of the woods. They quickly surrounded my patrol, careful to not leave any gaps in their barrier. They towered over us, swords drawn and evil sneers plastered on their faces.

My team all drew their weapons, but we were tired from the battle we had flight earlier. There was no way we could win this one, especially since it was against the Ares cabin, but we weren't going to surrender. The tension between the two teams grew until it was almost unbearable. And then the Ares cabin charged.

**Travis's POV**

I was fighting against Jason's patrol. It had been easy to find them. They had been stumbling around the forest like they had never even been in the woods before. It had been hilariously funny. We had taken our time, and easily cornered then between the Dionysus cabin. The look on Jason's face when we ambushed his team was priceless. He looked as if he had been slapped senseless.

It was less funny when I got turned into a ferret. I had been fighting against a Hephaestus kid, sword against sword, when one of the Hecate campers threw something at me. It hit me square in the back and my skin began to tingle. There was a great flash of bright blue light and I noticed I had begun to shrink. I continued shrinking until I was about a foot high. My hands turned into claws, and my nose lengthened into an elegant snout. Fur started to cover my body, and I dropped down to the ground on all fours. I was a ferret.

I turned and chittered in annoyance at the Hecate camper who had thrown the blue light. She just grinned at me and turned back to transform someone else into a rodent. I scampered to get away from from everyone so they wouldn't squash me. When I ran by, my small brain vaguely registered that the fact that the Hephaestus kid was completely fine. I ground my teeth at that.

I ran into something else that was furry. Once I got untangled from the other demigod-morphed rodent I saw what it was. It was a weasel with brown fur. I was just about to run off again, but I hesitated. Wait, brown fur? I peered closely at the weasel with my small, beady black eyes. I could recognize that person anywhere. I squeaked out, "Conner?"

"Travis," Conner said. He frowned at me and bared his sharp, pointy teeth. "Who got you?"

"I have no idea," I answered. "Some Hecate girl. Who got you?"

Conner growled. "Lou Ellen."

"Do you think this spell will eventually wear off?" I asked.

"Of course it will. At least, I hope so. I don't want to stay a weasel forever."

I laughed. "That'd be an awesome prank, though."

Conner replied, "Yeah. I just wish it wasn't happening to us."

At that very moment, a voice rang out among the trees. "The spell will wear off in an hour. Be good, stay here, and don't get lost." Lou Ellen was addressing us rodents.

Conner snarled. "She really expects us to stay here and be good? What does she think we are now, household pets?"

His dark eyes gleamed maliciously. I knew his thoughts exactly. "She's going to pay," I said.

"Yes," he agreed mischievously. We watched together as Lou Ellen, Jason, and the rest of their patrol faded into the forest. Then we turned around, together, and began to rally our troops.

**Drew's POV**

I curled my lip in disgust. "You really expect me cross that?!" I shouted at the head of the patrol, an Athena camper named Hugo. I didn't understand why I couldn't lead the team. I mean, I'm smart, beautiful, and _way_ more experienced than he would ever be. Wasn't that the reason that the senior counselors were always the oldest?

Hugo glared at me. "Drew," he said in a strict, serious tone of voice. "That's the border. We have to cross it."

"But its so deep!" I exclaimed. "The place that we crossed over at the first time only reached to my ankles. The water in this river will go up to my waist!"

Hugo rolled his eyes. "It won't go up to your waist, Drew. From the depth of the stream and the height of the water level at this time of year, it will clearly only reach your thighs. However, in the spring-"

I cut him off. "Whatever," I said, scoffing. Hugo scowled at me. I glared back at him, my arms crossed over my chest.

Hugo gestured for other campers to start crossing the river. My gang and most of the Aphrodite cabin complained on getting their clothes wet, but the other Athena campers bustled them forward. Cautiously, as if the water was full of crocodiles, my cabin stepped into the stream. They complained loudly as the water soaked their jeans. The only ones who weren't arguing were Lacy and Mitchell. In fact, they had already crossed the brook and were on the opposite bank, yelling at us to hurry up. I shot a venomous look their way.

It was now my turn to cross the stream. I looked down at the dark, unforgiving water. The currents flowed past me quickly, reminding me of the wind in the sky. I looked over at Hugo who was already in the water. He looked at me impatiently and sighed. "Well?" He asked. I glowered at him, but stepped into the river.

The second my skin touched the water, I immediately jumped back out. The water was freezing. It was like liquid ice. I screeched at Hugo. "I'm not going in there! I could get hypothermia and die!"

Hugo rolled his eyes at me. "Drew, you're not going to die. In fact, you're not even going to get hypothermia. To get hypothermia, your body temperature has to plummet from its normal temperature very quickly. Your body is usually 98.6 degrees. To even get a mild case of hypothermia, it has to fall to below 95 degrees. You usually get hypothermia when you get exposed to extremely cold conditions. It is very unlikely that you would get it from wading through a stream, especially since it isn't winter yet."

I wasn't paying any attention to him. Once Huge had finished with his lecture, I yawned into my hand like I had just woken up from a nap. "What was that again?" I asked sweetly, with a mockingly gleam in my eyes.

Hugo studied me, his pale gray eyes stormy. "Never mind," he said. "Just cross the stream, Drew."

I strolled down to the beach again, taking my time. I very cautiously put one foot in the water, grimacing as the cold seeped up my leg. I waded into the stream. The currents flowed fast around my hips. In front of me, Hugo stepped out onto the opposite bank. As quickly as I could, I tried to get to the opposite shore, but somehow lost my footing on the ground underneath my feet. I had just enough time to scream before my head went under.

From the other bank, I knew my girlfriends were shouting my name and crying, but I couldn't answer them. My head was completely submerged in the water. The cold I had felt before when only my legs were in the water was nothing like what I experienced now. The temperature seemed to be multiplied by ten. My head ached and my hands were starting to turn blue. My dark hair swirled around my face like a halo. I smiled at that. Even in the most despicable situations, I am still beautiful.

Two pairs of arms suddenly reached towards me and pulled me out of the water. I was surprised when I looked up and came face-to-face with Hugo. His face looked strained, like he had been forced to do something against his will. I turned around and saw Mitchell on the other side of me. Silently, they dragged my back onto the beach as if I was a bag of luggage or something. I lay down on the shore of the stream, breathing hard with all of my friend crowded around me. I turned to one of my besties, Julia, and saw tears streaming down her face.

Hugo, Mitchell, Lacy, and the rest of the Athena campers watched this scene with interest and mild amusement. I sat up and hugged all of my friends which took a while because I had a lot of them. One of my closest friends, Clare, was crying her eyes out. "We'd thought we'd lost you!" She said, leaning against her friend Penelope. Penelope put her arm around Clare.

"No, I'm fine, hon," I said, gripping her hand. She squeezed it tightly like she thought I would slip away from her at any moment. It was then that I realized how horrible the situation was.

"Oh no, my makeup!" I yelled. I clutched my face. My hair was plastered there in a tangled mess. "Quick, girls, do any of you have a mirror?!" Piper had confisticated mine earlier that day. I had been applying makeup and checking my reflection during the sword fighting lesson, so she had taken it.

Immediately, most of my friends got theirs out of their pockets and stretched them out to me. I took the fanciest, Julia's, and quickly checked my reflection. I almost fainted at the sight of it.

My beautiful, dark curly hair was wet, and full of knots. It stuck to my face like it was superglued. My dark eyes were dull and unfocused. My cheeks were pale and my lips were blue. But what was the worst was my makeup. The fresh coating of lipstick I had applied right before the start of capture-the-flag was smudged all around my mouth. My eyeshadow had been washed off, and my eyeliner had faded. My mascara was smeared all around my eyes. I looked as if I had fallen into a sewer. I gasped at the plain horror of my reflection, and immediately gathered the materials I needed to repair the damage. This was a disaster! I grabbed a handkerchief and began furiously dabbing the area around my mouth, trying in vain to remove the lipstick.

The Athena campers that were looking on at this spectacle laughed at me. I shouted at them in charmspeak, "Shut up!" and they quieted down immediately. Lacy, Mitchell, and Hugo stood off to the side, frowning at me. I put on a new layer of lipstick, and was about to fix my mascara when a shadow fell over me.

I looked up and saw Hugo standing over me. I glared at him. "What do you want?" I said.

He crossed his arms. "We have to get going," he said. "We don't have time to wait around while you fix your makeup. Annabeth expects us to be distracting the other team and I really don't think you want to make her mad." He stared at me in such a strange way that I self consciously blushed, and then quickly caught myself and made myself stop.

I said, "No way, sweetie. I am not going out there until I've fixed my makeup." I turned back the mascara I was holding in my right hand and gently applied it to my eyelashes. I looked at myself in the mirror and smiled at my work. I put the mascara down and picked up the eyeshadow.

"Yeah, well, Annabeth told me to get there on time and that's what I'm going to do," Hugo said defiantly. I peered up at him and started to say, "I'm not going anywhere," but I didn't get to finish my sentence. Hugo picked me up like I was a sack of potatoes or a bag of trash and lugged me over his shoulders, fireman style. He carried me away from the stream, and gestured for his other siblings to follow us.

I shouted at my group. "Girls! Get my makeup!" The two BFF's, Clare and Penelope picked up my makeup which lay scattered on the bank on the river. Julia picked up her mirror. The rest of the Athena campers herded the Aphrodite cabin after Hugo and me. Clare and Penelope hurried over to me and handed me my container of eyeshadow which I had dropped in my panic. I have the girls a grateful smile. "Thanks, hon. Hold on to the rest of my makeup until I need it, okay?" Penelope nodded. I turned back to deal with Hugo.

"Put me down this instant!" I yelled, pounding on his back, but my words had absolutely no effect on him. I was surprised. I spoke again, "Let me go!" That statement had about the same effect as the first: absolutely nothing.

I frowned. I had definitely put charmspeak into my words. After having been at camp for as long as I had, using my power had become a second nature to me. But why wasn't Hugo reacting? Everyone listened to me when I used my voice.

I tried one last time, putting all the power and force I had into one word. "Stop." And surprisingly, Hugo did. I continued with my orders and told him, "Drop." in the same commanding tone I had used before. Hugo dropped me on the ground. I sat up from the forest floor, rubbing my head. Ow. Maybe I should've used a different word to make him do what I wanted.

I turned back to him. "Speak," I said. "Tell why you wouldn't obey me earlier."

Hugo replied in a monotone voice, "Piper and Annabeth had warned me earlier that you might try to make us do something so Piper told me to be prepared for charmspeak. She told me not to listen or pay any attention to you if you started giving either me or my siblings any orders."

I silently cursed my half sister. She was such a pain. I didn't want to even be related to each her. I was furious when she made me step down from my position of senior counselor last year, and that anger hadn't evaporated one bit.

"Okay," I said out loud. I picked up my makeup from where I dropped it on the ground again. I put on the eyeshadow, and then gave it to Penelope. I took the eyeliner from her and applied it as well. Julia gave me the mirror and I looked at my reflection, breathing a sigh of relief when I saw I looked relatively normal again. Of course, I couldn't do anything about my wet hair or clothes, but that wasn't my biggest problem at the moment. My biggest problem was that it was a cold night and I was shivering uncontrollably. I was beginning to wonder if Hugo had been wrong and I was going to get hypothermia after all. I felt as cold as an ice cube.

I turned around and saw that Hugo had shaken himself out of his daze and was on his feet again. He addressed the rest of the campers while completely ignoring me. "We have to distract the other team," he said looking at my siblings.

Lacy told him, "Yes. We'll do whatever we have to do to win this game. Right girls?" She asked my group. They quietly murmured their agreement. I glared at all those who did and their smiles faded instantly.

Mitchell asked, "But how are we going to get the other team to come here?"

Hugo opened his mouth to reply but before he could, someone else spoke. "That's easy," said a voice from the shadows. "We're right here."

**Ugh. I, personally as the author, thought this chapter was really bad. I felt that Jason's POV was OOC, and the rest of the chapter was unnecessary. Sorry about that. I just wanted to post something for you guys to read and this is where the storyline took me. The next chapter will be better, l hope. **

**I added in a little part about ferrets and weasels. I was originally going to do squirrels and mice, but an idea suddenly popped into my mind so this was what I did. First person who gets the connection between either the ferrets, weasels, or both will get cookies and a shoutout in the next chapter. (HINT: One connection is from HOO, the other is from a different book series.)**

***Sighs tiredly* I feel like I'm rambling, but one more thing. If you think Drew should fall for Hugo, please review and tell me. Say either yes or no. I will go with what the majority of the reviews say.**

**On that note, **_**please**_ **review and tell me how I did on this chapter. I think it was horrible. What do you say?**

**Until next time, **

**snowflake45**

**P.S.: The fourth chapter of my story will probably get posted next week. And from the way things are going, it's going to be way more than four chapters.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Okay, okay, confession time. This chapter didn't get posted last week. I am EXTREMELY sorry about that. I feel so bad. My story has not been updated when I said it was going to. I am very sorry, although this is kind of my fault. Two weeks ago was testing week for my school, and I was reading two really great books, and I just couldn't get myself to put them down. Also, two weekends ago, my mother took away all my electronics for a week for fighting with my sibling, although she never took my tablet. So, sorry again. That's my fault, not my mom's.**

**A shoutout to awesomesauce90 for getting the ferret reference right! Yay! For the weasel thing, I was actually thinking about how weasels are the only thing that scares basilisks, but it doesn't matter. Cookies! (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::)**

**None of the rest of you tried? *starts to cry* I'm all right. But it was kind of sad.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything. PJO and HOO belong to Rick Riordan.**

**Sorry, this author's note is going on way too long. Storytime!**

**Butch's POV**

Percy, the rest of the Hephaestus and Hecate cabins, and I sat crouched in the bushes near the river. We watched as the Aphrodite cabin crossed the stream, and headed into the woods. Once they were gone, we quietly slipped across the border, and onto the other team's territory. We headed left, while the other team went right; both heading into the forest in different directions.

It was dark in the forest. I could hardly see two feet in front of my face. As the sun sank over the edge of the horizon, the shadows lengthened even more. I was beginning to wonder how we were going to see in the dark since none of us had any sort of light. I was just about to ask Percy that question when some Hephaestus guy took out what looked like a celestial bronze flashlight. It was about eight inches long. He turned it on, and its glow illuminated the woods in a three yard radius.

We continued to trek through the undergrowth. As we progressed through the forest, I could hear shouts and the sound of metal clashing on metal from the right side of the territory. From the sound of it, Jason's patrol had encountered some enemy campers. I was beginning to worry that maybe we were walking into a trap. We hadn't seen any activity of the blue team since we had crossed the border, and we were already a great deal into their side of the woods.

My anxieties were put to rest when we continued to head into the forest, and came face-to-face with a group of startled Nemesis campers. We quickly dealt with them. There weren't very many of them, and we had the element of surprise. All of us drew our weapons, and we instantly attacked them. They could barely hold off against us. I striked, parried, blocked, and slashed with my sword, aiming it toward the Nemesis girl I was fighting. She stumbled on a root, but caught herself before she could hit the ground. She parried my thrust from a kneeling position, and then launched herself up at me with a flip, her sword slashing toward my face. I blocked her attack, but was taken by surprise, stepped back a few feet. She pressed me hard to make sure that I didn't try anything tricky. I had to admit, even though she didn't look like much, this girl was good.

I scowled in concentration. I jabbed at her side, but she blocked my thrust. I started to go on offense instead of defense, and began to relentlessly rain blows at her. She could barely defend herself. I backed her up to the trunk of an oak, and she raised her sword. The Nemesis girl made a feeble attempt to attack me, but I had the upper hand. I knocked the girl's sword away, and hit her over the head. She crumpled onto the floor of the forest like a rag doll.

I felt someone standing behind me, and I turned just in time to block a blow headed towards me from another Nemesis camper. This time, it was a boy who was attacking me. He thrust his sword toward my face, and I ducked on pure instinct. I could feel his sword scarcely passing over my head, the blade brushing the very tips of my hair. I rolled away from his sword, and came up in a crouched position. I began to aim my blows at his unprotected legs. The boy couldn't block them, so he jumped away.

I sprang up from where I was crouching in one giant leap, and attacked the boy. The Nemesis camper was taken by surprise, and was barely able to parry my thrust. He fell back a good foot or two. I quickly dealt another blow to his side, which the boy couldn't block. My blade scraped past his armor, barely drawing blood, but still making a thin red line appear. He looked down at side, shocked. That was just the distraction I needed. I quickly clubbed him over the head with the butt of my sword, and he fell onto the forest floor.

I turned and from the corner of my eyes, i could see Percy fighting with four Nemesis campers at once. He was sweating a great deal, and was barely able to hold off their attacks. On his own, he could have dealt with three of them easily, but four was pushing his limit. They backed him up to a tree, and were about to attack him once again when everybody heard a great roaring sound. All the campers: on our own patrol and from the other team, turned to Percy. He had his arms raised above his head. The roaring continued, growing louder and louder. Percy yelled, "Grab onto something!" at us, and I just had enough time to fastened my arms around a beech tree before the huge wave of water cascaded over us.

I turned to Percy. He was standing in the surf like it was no big deal. The water currents rushed past him; flowing around his legs. He wasn't even affected by it. The other campers, however, were a different story. Most of the demigods on our patrol had managed to grab onto something, but the demigods on the other team weren't so lucky. They were totally unprepared for the twenty-five foot tall wave bearing down on them. Many of them screamed, and most of them tried to run, but they hadn't even taken three steps before the water came down over their heads. The remaining Nemesis campers grabbed their unconscious siblings as they were swept away out of the clearing like leaves in a flooded river.

I clutched the beech tree even harder. The water swept past me, and it took all of my strength not to be swept along with it. All around me, people clung to their anchors, desperate to stay where they were as the force of the water flowed around them, tugging them backwards. One Hecate girl lost her grip on the low hanging tree branch she was holding on to, and got pulled backward with a scream. A yard or so down, one of her siblings caught her and secured her with his anchor. She sent him a grateful look.

Our patrol waited until the flow of the currents died down. When the water had more or less leveled out, and the force of the water wasn't as strong, I let go of the tree. I stood up, my shoes sinking into the ground. My clothes were covered covered with mud, and I was dripping wet. Everybody around me looked cold and miserable. We shook ourselves, trying to get all the water we could off of us.

Percy was the only one who seemed even slightly happy. He was standing in the middle of the clearing, grinning from ear to ear as angry campers sent death glares his way. His expression never wavered while all around him, people tried in vain to clean themselves off, but with no avail.

"Here," he said. "I can help." He walked up to a Hephaestus girl, Nyssa, I think, and gently touched her arm. Her clothes were immediately dry, and she stopped shivering. "I can't do anything about the mud, but I can remove all of the water on you." I looked back at Nyssa. The mud that had once covered her from head to toe had turned to dirt.

Percy moved around the clearing, removing all of the water on our clothes. When he got to me, I could feel the water roll off as he put his hand on my arm. The mud caking my body flattened out, and became lighter. I watched as the dark brown color of the mud lost its cocoa bean color and became the shade of the sand in an Arizona desert. When Percy removed his hand, I was completely dry.

I was easily able to wipe off the dirt. It clung to my clothes, but with a little scraping and a few broken nails, I was able to get most of it off. After I had removed the mud from my clothes, I bent down and picked up my sword. I had dropped it on the ground while I had been hanging on to that beech try. My weapon was sitting a few yard away, and it was cloaked in mud. I picked it up by the handle, which was the cleanest part of it, and peered at it in distaste. All around me, people were doing the same. Campers groaned when they saw that all of their weapons were covered in mud.

I looked around quietly, trying to find a water source to wash off my blade in. We were in an isolated clearing, with no evident stream or brook near it. I groaned. Percy had probably called the water over here from all the way back at the border. I sighed. I would have to make do with what I had.

With much searching, I finally found some water. It wasn't very much; just a puddle, but I could live with it. I crouched down next to it, careful to not get my clothes muddy again, and gently washed off my blade. The mud came off easier than I had expected, even though it was almost dry. I expect it had something to do to Celestial Bronze being a magical metal, but if it really was special, shouldn't it have expelled the mud? I heaved a sigh. Nothing in the demigod world was simple.

The water in the puddle was cold. Just like the rest of the water in the brook, it was freezing this time of year. I washed my sword off as quickly as I could, and pulled it out. The blade shone in the dark, and it looked as good as new. I stealthed it in my belt, stood up, and turned around.

Everybody had already recovered their weapons, and were ready to continue into the woods. We exited the clearing and walked on into the forest. About a half a mile away, we found the Nemesis campers. They were lying on the forest floor, cold, wet, and half drowned. Many of them were passed out, whether from the force of the wave that had descended on them, or from getting clubbed over the head by us earlier. The ones that were conscious were groaning, and lying on the ground next to their sibling. We carefully stepped around them, and moved on into the woods.

We were totally surprised when the tree branches surrounding us turned toward us and smacked us across the glade.

**Melissa's POV**

I stood, clutching my knife, and stared up at the Ares cabin. I turned to Jason, wondering what to do. His face was tight and strained, and he had his Imperial Gold _gladius _out. He face instantly told me we were not going to surrender. I gulped, and I felt my legs start to shake. I had never been the best at swordfighting, and I doubt my patrol had a chance against the Ares cabin, even though we were _slightly _bigger than them.

A big girl in the front of the patrol, whose name I didn't know, snarled at Jason. "You'll never get past us, Grace," she said, sneering at him. She clutched a long spear in her right hand that crackled ominously. The spearhead was covered with yellow light.

Jason said, "We'll see, Clarisse."

She glared at him, and her beady brown eyes glinted maliciously. "In your dreams, punk." Then, she charged.

She came toward Jason at an incredible speed, slashing her spear at him in a deadly arc. He barely blocked it with his sword. Clarisse aimed a blow to his side, and Jason step-sided her stab. He rolled away on the ground, and came up standing behind her back. He attacked her, but Clarisse predicted his move, and intercepted it at the last moment. She tried to slash him across the chest, but Jason dodged once again.

I watched the fight, wide eyed while all around me, the Ares cabin started clashing with the demigods from my patrol. Campers surrounding me on both sides suddenly found themselves face-to-face with a son or daughter of Ares. I looked all around me. Lou Ellen stood, dagger in hand, facing an Ares girl with jet black hair. In her other hand, she held her old fashioned reed torch, twirling it in like a baton. Each time the Ares girl approached her, she stabbed at the girl who dodged every time, and swiped her torch at her face. The flames on the top of the torch came so close to the girl's head that every time she did it, the Ares camper had to duck, the fire at the end of it just barely singeing her hair.

The girl growled at Lou Ellen. In her right hand, she clutched a wicked looking bronze sword. She feinted to her right, and then quickly changed tactics as Lou Ellen moved to block her left side. The camper caught Lou Ellen by surprise and opened up a gash in her right forearm. She gasped, the blood from the wound dripping onto the hard dirt of the forest floor. The black haired Ares girl quickly disarmed her, and held her blade to her throat.

Lou Ellen clenched her teeth. She brought her left hand up toward her face, and I saw she was still clutching the reed torch. She lifted her right hand to the fire at the end, and blew softly, as if she was blowing a feather out of the palm her hand. The flames on the top of it immediately blasted outward in a great column of heat and energy. The Ares girl jumped back, but she wasn't quick enough. The fire caught her right between the eyes, and when it died, the Ares camper had a huge, third degree burn covering the expanse of her face.

The demigod must have been more surprised than hurt, but it still must have been plenty painful, because the bigger girl advanced slowly with the murder plain on her face. A blood vessel had popped near her right eye, and both were twitching uncontrollably. Lou Ellen backed up as speedily as she could, but she tripped on a root growing on the forest floor. She hit the ground, the flame on her touch immediately disappearing as it made contact with the dirt. The Ares camper approached, sporting a triumphant grin on her ugly face.

I looked away, not wanting to see what happened next. I turned my attention back to Jason and Clarisse. They were locked in a fierce sword against spear fight, a little away from the rest of the crowd. Their arms were a blur as they blocked, parried, and tried to attack each other all at once, leaping back from the other's blows. They dodged and twisted, feinting to the left and right as they tried their best to get under the other's guard. Once, Jason had surprised Clarisse with a blow to the side, which she had barely fended off, and had attacked her shoulder during her moment of weakness. Clarisse's attack had drastically decreased and Jason had taken full advantage of the situation. He had tried to snap her spear in half, but had only managed to take a little chunk out of it, before Clarisse recovered her wits, and had sent blow after blow at him more forcefully than ever. Jason fell back a foot or two.

I turned away from them, about the focus my attention on something else when a flash of light caught my eye. I turned around a saw a huge Ares camper coming at me. He was about six feet tall, and covered with gleaming bronze armor from head to toe. He was clutching an unrealistically large sword in his hand that was about four feet long. His helmet was on, so I couldn't see his face, but I could already guess that it was contorted in a gruesome smile with just a hint of teeth. Humph. It was just like children of Ares to go after the weakest, most vulnerable kids in the group. A.k.a., me. Big meanies.

I looked around the area surrounding me, frantically trying to search for some way to escape, but people were blocking me on all sides, fighting against their own opponents. Naturally, the path leading to me wasn't clear, so the big Ares camper shoved his way through bunches of his siblings and other demigods from my patrol, knocking them to the ground. He came toward me, swinging his big sword like he was born for battle which, I guess, he was. I could just imagine he was smiling even wider from underneath his helmet, thinking he was going to win an easy victory.

I gritted my teeth, and frantically looked all around me once again, searching for an escape route. There wasn't one. I was too small to force my way through the crowd of sparring demigods. I was too inexperienced win fight against this camper. I had to save my energy in order to put the two guards protecting the flag asleep, so I couldn't fight away. Using my powers really drained me, and I was still weak from already using them once tonight. I wasn't even sure I had enough energy left in me that I could put the demigods guarding the flag to sleep. I couldn't overexert myself.

The Ares camper kept approaching closer and closer to me, and I just kept backing away farther and farther from him. This went on for several minutes, but then, from underneath the helmet, I heard a deep growl. I could tell that the demigod was starting to get impatient. I quickly turned around to see how much room I had left to retreat, and stopped in my tracks. A dead end met my eyes. I whipped back around, and tried to edge past the Ares kid, but he caught me easily. He extended the arm holding the sword, and with one smooth stroke, knocked my knife out of my grip. Great. Now I was weak, powerless, _and_ weaponless. I felt so stupid, I could have kicked myself if I hadn't been so scared. I promised that I would do exactly that when the time came, and I wasn't in this situation.

The son of Ares crowed with triumph. He swooped forward, to do what I wasn't sure, and I started to get edgy. I hated being trapped. I turned my head to the side, expecting to feel a blow on my body, but surprisingly, I didn't. It never come. All I heard was a blast of the impact of something hitting something else, a sharp zap, and a high pitched, yell of pain. I turned around in surprise, and what I saw shocked me out of my skin. Literally.

The Ares camper's whole body with covered in electricity. Bright volts of it arched from one place on his intricately engraved armor from the other. At first, I wondered how this had happened, but then realized it was quite simple to figure out. I turned to Jason, smiled at him, and mouthed a, 'Thank you.' He nodded, but he looked really tired. Calling down lightning must have taken a lot out of him, just like putting people to sleep did for me.

On the ground next to him, Clarisse lay face down in the dirt, her body slightly smoking. I realized that Jason had split the lightning he had called down: sending half of it over to the camper chasing me, and directing the other half at Clarisse. It felt good that I had been noticed, and that somebody had been watching over me. I watched as Jason strode over to Clarisse, bent down to pick up her spear, and snapped it in half. I grinned at the sight, glad to see the end of Maimer the Lamer.

The Ares camper in front of me continued to yell. The electricity covering his body had dissipated, but the kid still cried out in pain. He wobbled for a moment or two on his feet, and then collapsed into the dirt. Well, two down, twenty more to go, I guess you'd say. Ugh.

I looked all around me, and took everything in. My patrol was in bad shape. Many of the demigods around me were either knocked out, or unconscious, and lying on the ground. In total, there was about fifteen Ares kids left to defeat, and we weren't doing a very good job. Most of the demigods on my team were injured or wounded, or incapacitated. The Ares cabin could defeat the ones that remained as easily as you would a swat a fly. I knew we were in big trouble.

I threw a glance around the clearing. Camper fought against camper, and there was the sharp clang of metal on metal resonating throughout the hollow. Jason was fighting against an Ares boy, his sword a golden blur in his hand. Lou Ellen was still sparring with the black haired girl. Everywhere I looked, I could see the signs that we we losing this battle. We needed help. Badly.

I took one more glimpse of the scene in front of me, and then slipped off to the side of the clearing. I entered the shadows, and peered out to see if anybody had noticed my absence. No one had. That was one of the good things about being small and shy: people never remembered you. Of course, that could always backfire, but it was worth it.

I quickly and quietly turned around and headed into the woods. My patrol needed help. And I knew just where to get it.

**Nyssa's POV**

I flew backward and landed on my back with a _thud. _Pain jolted up my spine, and the impact of tree roots hitting my back caused bruises to appear immediately. All around me, the rest of my patrol groaned, and dragged themselves to their feet. I did likewise. People started to withdraw their weapons, and everybody looked around the clearing warily, as if they expected our attackers appear out of midair. And appear, they did.

A group of about twenty to thirty campers of various different ages materialized from the shadows. Two girls, both with wheat colored blonde-brown hair, but one with sharp green eyes, and one with deep brown emerged from the group, and placed themselves at the head of the rest of the demigods. They smiled, looking at us with humor in their eyes as we scrambled to our feet, and brandished our weapons in a defensive position.

"Well, well, well," said the girl with the brown eyes. "What do we have here?"

The second girl smiled. "Did you really think our team wouldn't have a better defense?"

Over to my right, I heard Butch growl, "Demeter."

The two girls continued to smile. "Why, of course," said the first one. "Who else did you think can manipulate nature?"

Percy said, "Move out of our way, Miranda."

The first girl laughed. "You can't tell me what to do. Even though you're the twice dubbed savior of Olympus."

"Yes," the girl with green eyes said. "You cannot pass."

I scrunched up my face. "That's because you're protecting the flag, isn't it?"

They looked over at me in annoyance, and I ignored their death glares. They continued to talk, completely ignoring my question which I suppose, was a good sign.

"The point is," the first girl, Miranda said, "is that we won't let you pass. It's our job to make sure that you stay here, and won't progress any further into our territory."

They turned around and looked at their siblings. I saw each of them give the other nods.

"Guys!" I just had enough time to yell, "I think it's a trap!" before the Demeter kids all snapped their fingers. Vines grew out of the ground at an incredible speed, curling around our bodies, and lifting us high into the air, flailing. All of us tried to get our weapons within range to cut the plants, but the weeds just coiled around us even tighter than before, pinning our arms to our sides. The vines covered our bodies from head to toe. They grew so they were so thick around that we couldn't have broken them if we had tried. They continued to grow, their leafy tendrils stretching out into the darkness, forming a sort of great wall with my patrol and I as the center piece, located inside of it. Once it had finished growing, the mass of plants was about twenty five to thirty feet tall. It almost reached the tops of the trees but not quite.

The green eyed girl stepped forward. "Now, that's better," she said.

"Let us go!" Somebody shouted, struggling against the vines. I couldn't tell who it was in the dark, but I didn't recognize his voice. Miranda sighed, and snapped her finger again. The plants covered the boy's mouth, and their grip on him tightened.

I tried to get my sword into a position so I could cut the vines, but it was futile. The plants covered every inch of my body, and I just couldn't get my sword at the right angle. From the noises surrounding me, I would say that the other campers were attempting the same kind of thing. However, none of us were having very much luck.

"Katie," I heard Butch say. "Come on. Let us go. Please?"

The green eyed girl laughed. "And why would I do that?" She asked. "You guys are trying to steal our flag. I'm only protecting our own."

"So are you!" I exclaimed, but Katie just waved her hand, and vines began growing over my mouth, their small, sharp, prickly leaves digging into my flesh. The tendrils reached out and took a hold of my sword. "Mmffh!" I protested as they dropped it into the mass of plants below. My weapon fell about a foot or two before it got tangled up in the rest of the vines. I struggled to reach it, but the plants just tightened every time I tried, so I eventually gave up.

"Nyssa makes a good point," somebody said, but I couldn't figure out who. I would have smiled at them if my mouth hadn't been covered, and I hadn't been so upset about losing my sword.

"Well, then," Miranda said. "You're trespassing on our territory. We're protecting ourselves. Does anybody else have a sensible argument to that?"

"What happened to no maiming?" Somebody else yelled.

"We're not maiming you," a Demeter boy, from the back, said.

"Thank you," Miranda said, turning around to smile at her half-brother.

I struggled against the leaves, and their grip on me began to tighten the more I moved about. If only I could get to my sword! Then I could use cut the vines, and be out of here in an instant! All around people seemed to be thinking the same kind of thing. I wormed one of my hands around the vines binding it. I felt into my pocket for anything that might help me escape from the plants. Below me, the argument continued.

Someone asked, "Isn't there a rule that said prisoners can only be disarmed and not bound or gagged?"

Miranda smiled. "Yes."

"We're not prisoners!" Somebody else shouted out. "We're just stuck in this stupid web of plants!"

I searched around in my pockets to see if I had anything that could help me. I had all sorts of random things in the pockets of my jeans, but nothing that I could really use to cut myself loose from these crazy vines. I withdrew a rubber bouncy ball, a toothpick, about six inches of coiled wire, an oil stained cloth, a few buttons, a three inch long piece of white porcelain, and a few clothes pins. Wait, porcelain? That was perfect! I gathered the remainder of the items I had on my lap, and deposited them back into my pocket. Who knew, they might come in handy later on tonight. I gripped the porcelain tightly in my right hand, and got to work, quietly and carefully sawing at the vines binding my left arm.

"Well, there you have it," Miranda said. "Congratulations, you have just answered your own question." There was a deep sarcasm located in her voice.

Katie smiled. She turned to Miranda. "This is boring. What are we supposed to do, watch these guys all night?"

Miranda shrugged. Katie sighed. "I'm going to secure the perimeter," she said. "Make sure they don't escape." She turned on her heel, gestured to some of her sibling, and headed out into the woods. If the vines had let me, I would have smiled. Now we had less Demeter kids to deal with.

I continued the use the piece of porcelain to cut through the vines covering my left arm. Each tendril was was about five inches long. The shard of glass I was using was sharp, but it was also small, and couldn't slice through the vine all at once. I had to continuously keep slashing at the plant with the blade in order for it to make a difference. Leaves, stems, and other assorted plant materials flew everywhere.

In about three minutes, I succeeded in cutting through the first vine. It broke into two thick pieces, falling apart from each other, but still staying in the 'web of plants' as the other camper had called it. I prayed that the Demeter kids wouldn't notice the difference in their plant wall, or felt that I had sawed through a vine. I knew they all had an affinity for plants and nature, and a connection to them, but I wasn't sure how deep it was.

I continued to cut through the rest of the plants binding me. If I had a sword, especially a Celestial Bronze one, cutting through this mass of vines would have taken no time at all. However, I didn't had a sword, or even a dagger. All I had was this puny little piece of porcelain, but I was grateful also the same. Once I got through this, I promised to myself that I would train to be more resourceful in the future.

Within a least fifteen minutes, I was done. I had just finished sawing through the last of my vines when I heard a loud cry. I looked down at the Demeter campers, expecting them to be staring up at me, but they weren't. Instead, they were looking to the left of where I was. I turned, as did every demigod on my patrol in time to see Percy Jackson leap from where he was sitting on the plant wall. In his right hand, he held his sword, Riptide, and in his left he was clutching a vine. He swung down to the ground with a great cry, performing a backflip once he was about twelve feet off the ground; just to show off, I assumed. He landed in a the middle of a crowd of Demeter campers, startling them out of their wits.

I quickly shoved the small piece of porcelain into my back pocket, and crouched down to pick up my sword. I curled my hand around its hilt, and stood up just in time to see a hoard of about fifteen demigods amassing to the left of me, where Percy had escaped from. They grabbed a vine each and, yelling their heads off, swung down in an angry, cankerous mass of figures. They landed behind Percy in the group of Demeter's cabin, all of them holding their weapons.

From up above them, in the plant wall, the rest of the demigods still covered with vines and I watched them begin to fight. If Demeter's children were good at making traps, then they sure weren't good at hand-to-hand combat. The thing was, while they were very skilled at using their powers from a distance by surprising people, they weren't very aggressive in a real fight, and mostly used more defense than offense. I watched intently as our little troop of campers easily took down the sons and daughters of Demeter. After about a few seconds or so, and turned to my right, and began cutting people loose from the plants holding them. As soon as they were free, most of the demigods immediately grabbed a vine, and swung down to aid our little group in fighting the Demeter cabin, although three half bloods stayed behind to help me free people.

Pretty soon, everyone was gone except us. The plant wall wobbled slightly, and tipped to the right, throwing us all off balance. I nearly fell off the entire thing, but caught myself at the last moment. A Hecate girl screamed in my ear, "Their power is wavering! The Demeter cabin can't spend anymore time or energy holding up these plants! It's going to fall! We have to get out of here!"

She was screaming so loud, I nearly went deaf, but I nodded to let her know I understood. I gestured to all of my companions to find a vine, and I grabbed the nearest one to me. Together, we swung down to the ground just as the plant wall shriveled up, and collapsed behind us. We landed on the ground rather clumsily, but the alternative would have been to fall from about thirty feet in the air onto our butts, so I wasn't that annoyed.

We got there at the exact moment that the group of demigods on the ground knocked out the last Demeter kid. We sorted ourselves out, since we had become all discombobulated when the Demeter cabin ambushed us. I walked straight up the Percy, who was getting all kinds of pats on the back from the guys, and compliments and thank-yous from the girls. I asked quietly, "How did you escape?"

He turned toward me. "I dropped Riptide on purpose."

"You _what_?!" I said, in complete disbelief. Wasn't Riptide his sword?

"I dropped Riptide," he answered. Then he saw my face. "It's magical. I can never lose it, because it will always go back to my pocket."

I thought about his statement. That was actually a pretty cool feature. I would have to remind myself to make a sword like that someday.

"So you dropped your sword," I said. "And it went back to your pocket."

"Yep," he said. "So I took my sword out of pocket, uncapped it, and cut the vines surrounding me. I was going to attack the Demeter cabin then and there, but I saw you were also escaping, so I waited. Then I had this brilliant idea to free the rest of demigods near me, so I did. And here we are."

I snorted at his 'brilliant idea'. That would have been anyone else's first thoughts as soon as they escaped: to go get back up. But I nodded at the rest of his story. Everything else seemed logical.

And it was at that exact moment when Melissa ran up to us, gasping, wheezing, and holding her side. "P-Percy!" She cried. "Th-the Demeter cabin is co-coming!"

My eyes widened. I had no idea how Melissa had got here or why, but it was obvious to anybody that had eyes that she had sprinted all the way to us. I yelled out at the campers surrounding us, "The Demeter cabin is coming!"

The result was instantaneous. Demigods immediately drew their weapons: people unsheathed their swords, pulled out their knives, and retrieved their daggers. Two Hephaestus kids ran to the side of the clearing the other half of the Demeter cabin had disappeared in, and two Hecate campers ran to where the previous half of the cabin lay unconscious.

About a minute later, the first Demeter kids burst into the clearing, swinging their swords. Our two patrols immediately clashed together. The second half of the Demeter cabin lingered in the shadows. They stretched their arms out, and manipulated all of the plants in the glade to assist them, and to attack us. I narrowly avoid a shrub as it arms tried to trip me as I ran by.

Melissa had retreated to the back of the clearing. She had looked exhausted when she had arrived, so she had chosen to sit this battle out. She hasn't told us what why she had come to find us, but we would have plenty of time to talk about that later after we thrashed the Demeter cabin. I slashed, stabbed, dodged, and rolled, attacking the Demeter campers, and defending myself all at once. We easily defeated them, just as we had with the first part of their cabin, despite the plants that were making things very difficult.

Once all of the Demeter campers were unconscious, I turned back to Melissa. She had recovered, and was breathing normally again. Percy, Butch, and I approached her. She was sitting on the ground of the forest clearing, playing with her knife. I asked, "Why are you here?"

"Oh, that." Melissa sounded kind of sheepish, but she continued with her explanation, her head held high. "The last time I was with them, my patrol was being attacked by the Ares cabin." She paused, letting that sink in. "They were losing badly. So I came here, seeking your help."

There was dead silence. Then Percy suddenly said, "Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go help them!"

We all shouted, shaking our weapons in the air, and hurried over to the rest of our patrol. We quickly explained the situation to them, and then rushed off, leaving them very confused. They followed us, however, into the woods as we sprinted in the direction that Melissa had told us the other patrol was in. We all ran as fast as we could, without stopping even once for anything.

We got there in record time. As soon as we were standing outside of the clearing, Melissa gestured for us to crouch near the ground, and creep forward. We crawled along the forest floor, stealthily avoiding branches, and anything else that would make a loud noise if we stepped on it. We carefully maneuvered around obstacles, and slunk up to the bushes surrounding the clearing. I peered out over them, along with Percy, Butch, and Melissa.

I saw about five, tired battered demigods with the red horsetail-plume helmets that showed they were on our team, fighting against eight campers of the Ares cabin. I recognized Jason immediately by his bright gold _gladius. _I also saw one of my friends, Lou Ellen from the Hecate cabin, fighting against a dark haired girl with an evil sneer on her face. I noticed that the other four half bloods didn't look so good. Their attacks were weak, and they could barely defend themselves. They looked as exhausted as Melissa had when she had appeared to ask for our help, perhaps even more so.

I turned to the others. "We've got to help them," I whispered.

"Yes," Melissa answered.

"On the count of three," Percy said. "We'll rush out there to help them. One."

We all with draw our weapons.

"Two."

We tensed up.

"Three."

We ran out there.

***This is a Line Break Just In Case You Were Wondering***

The Ares cabin didn't know what had hit them. One moment, they were kicking the other team's butts, and the next, they were they ones being creamed. All of a sudden, from the bushes came a loud battle cry, and about twenty five to thirty new, random campers sprinted out. The Ares cabin tried to fight back, but the other force was too strong. They quickly defeated the Ares cabin, clubbing each and every members over the head, knocking them to the ground.

Clarisse was the last to fall. She had been knocked out by Jason earlier that night, and she really didn't look forward to it happening again. She fought with a deep fury at the campers who had dared to attack her and her siblings. She wounded a few of them, but within time, their sheer numbers alone overwhelmed her. She was tired from her fight earlier with multiple demigods on the first patrol. Her body ached all over from the lightning Jason had blasted at her. She was angry at him for breaking her spear, but she couldn't motivate on just raw emotions alone. Her blows we getting weaker, and she was exhausted. The demigods from the new patrol cornered her. She raised her sword in one, last, valiant effort, but she didn't get the chance to land a blow. Percy clubbed her over the head with the butt of his sword, and she collapsed.

And here ends the story of Clarisse, counselor of the Ares cabin, for now.

***This is Just Another Line Breaker. Again***

I took a deep breath, trying to slow my beating heart. I sheathed my Celestial Bronze sword, and walked over to where Jason, Lou Ellen, Melissa, Percy, and Butch were gathered. The unconscious bodies of the Ares campers lay scattered all around us. It had been easy to defeat them. We had streamed out of the woods, surprising them out of their wits. They had tried to fight back, but it had been pointless. All of the Ares campers had been extremely tired once we had arrived. We barely had to do anything. In less than ten minutes, all of the enemy half bloods had been knocked out.

I walked up to where the five other demigods were standing. When we had first encountered them, Jason, Lou Ellen, and the rest of the people on their patrol had been exhausted. However, they had soon recovered, and everyone was fine at the moment. All of the campers were conscious. I stood off to the side as Lou Ellen, Melissa, and Jason thanked us for our help. Percy told him not to worry about it, and he would have done the same for them, and the rest of the protocol. Then Jason thanked Melissa for getting Percy, and she smiled and told him she was just helping her team, and everyone began to talk in earnest about what we were going to do now.

"I'll admit," Lou Ellen began. "That this has not gone exactly the way we had planned. However, since we are all together now, I think we should get the flag."

"Yes," I agreed. "Let's win this thing."

Jason nodded. "I think that's the best option."

Percy said. "Yeah." He turned to Jason. "Hey, man, who'd you run into on your way here? Which cabins?"

"Hermes and Dionysus. Lou Ellen and the Hecate cabin turned most of them into ferrets and weasels."

Lou Ellen smirked at that. "I got Conner Stoll pretty good."

Melissa smiled. "That reminded me of Harry Potter. Remember, in the fourth book, when Draco got turned into a ferret?"

I grinned. "Yeah. That was so funny."

Jason looked at us quizzically. "What on earth are you talking about?"

"Nothing," I said quickly. I didn't have time to explain Harry Potter to Jason. I was surprised that he didn't know what it was already. Almost anyone who reads books nowadays has read at least one Harry Potter book. Then I remembered that Jason had lived his whole life in the Twelfth Legion, away from the modern world. He wouldn't have known what Harry Potter even was. And somehow, that seemed really sad.

"So," Lou Ellen said. "Who did you run into?"

Butch growled. "Nemesis. And Demeter."

I could hear the resentment in his voice when he said the word _Demeter_. I figured he was going to hold a grudge against them for a long time. We all were.

"Okay, guys," I said, trying to get us back on track. "Let's go get the flag."

Jason said, "Okay. Melissa, are you ready?"

The girl visibly paled, but she held her head high. "Yes," she said in a brave tone of voice. "I am."

"Great," said Percy. "Let's go get that flag."

**Malcolm's POV**

I stood ten yards away from Zeus's Fist, guarding the flag. Next to me, on the right, Piper stood, clutching the handle of her dagger, Katoptris. I had been a little apprehensive at first to be standing so close to the pile of boulders that was supposedly, "cursed", but I had quickly gotten over that fear. _It was just a pile of rocks,_ I kept reminding myself, over and over again. _Just a pile of rocks._

From outside of the clearing, Piper and I had heard the first sounds of battle: the clanging vibration of metal hitting metal, the sharp cries of the demigods fighting against each other, and the calm, eerie quiet the forest held as its trespassers fought against each other. Piper and I had both gripped our weapon tighter, determined to stay alert if anyone defeated the Ares cabin. That was highly unlikely for a little patrol to manage, but as the saying goes, "Better safe than sorry." I had learned that lesson the hard way, many years ago.

As time went on, the sounds of battle grew softer and softer, and I sighed with relief, thinking that the Ares cabin had defeated the intruders. I was greatly mistake. About ten minutes after the noise had died, it started all over again, this time louder, and more furious than ever. After a little more time had passed, it stopped abruptly. I took that as a bad sign.

And indeed, it was. About five minutes after the silence had started, a group of people emerged from the undergrowth. I could tell instantly that it was not the Ares cabin. I immediately spotted the figures of Jason, Percy, Butch, and Lou Ellen. They were flanked by two girls. The first was strong and muscular looking, with dark brown hair and deep brown eyes. I had seen her around camp before, and I struggled to remember her name. I knew she was a daughter of Hephaestus. Nora? Natalie? Natasha? No, I suddenly thought. Nyssa.

The second girl had a petite figure. She had long, light brown hair, and deep, cloudy blue eyes. Her was short for her age, and had elfish features. She radiated a quiet aura, but even from a distance, I could feel how powerful it was. She walked up with the rest of the demigods, flanking the four demigods on the right of them. I knew she must be important if she was with them, and even though she didn't look like much, I couldn't underestimate her.

Piper and I gripped our weapons just in case they decided to attack us, but they didn't. In fact, they did the exact opposite. The group of demigods approached us. Their weapons weren't withdrawn. They weren't carrying any kind of items used in a battle such as a shield, or the equivalent of it. They just walked toward us, completely unafraid as we squeezed the handle of our weapons even tighter.

The demigods walked forward until they were about five yards away. There, Percy, Butch, Jason, Lou Ellen, and Nyssa stopped approaching, but the other girl continued forward. I started to get edgy. I still couldn't place the girl's name or face, but she still seemed kind of familiar. I hated not knowing something, and not being able to identify this girl was killing me.

The girl strolled forward until she was about a foot away from us. We could have easily have defeated her, since we had weapons, and she did not, but for some reason, we didn't. We just stood there, staring each other in the eye: my gray eyes staring deep into the girl's dark, pure blue ones. The demigod turned to look into Piper's multicolored ones, too.

She stepped back a foot, and closed her eyes. Her forehead furrowed in concentration, and she took a deep breath. Her eyes snapped back open, and I was surprised when I saw them. They were a mixture of ice blue, and mist white. She advanced forward, stepping closer to me. She placed her pointer finger and thumb in the center of my forehead, and my eyes immediately began to droop.

Piper noticed what was happening, and turned to the girl. "Stop," she said in charmspeak, clutching Katoptris in her right hand. The girl immediately stopped what she was doing, and removed her fingers from my brow. My mind cleared instantly, and I furrowed my forehead in confusion. What had just happened?

Instead of turning back to me, the girl turned to Piper. She scrunched her forehead in what looked like deep thought, but I knew it wasn't. She was gathering her energy for something. The girl reached her hand out, and touched Piper's forehead. Her eyelids began to fall, but Piper struggled to keep them open.

The other girl's forehead crinkled even deeper in concentration. The pressure her fingertips exerted on Piper's forehead increased, and Piper's eyes began to droop, just like mine had earlier. She tried to stay awake, but couldn't. Piper swayed gently. She tried to fight it, but it was too strong. The daughter of Aphrodite gave one last effort to stay conscious, but it was no use. The force extruding from the girl was too powerful. Piper stood still for a moment, then her eyes closed, and she fell to the ground fast asleep.

The girl now turned to me. She looked terrible. Her blue eyes were dull, and clouded over more than usual. She rocked on her feet, like _she_ was the next one who was going to fall asleep. However, nevertheless, she was still conscious. She reached over before I could stop her, and placed her fingers on my forehead once again. My mind was filled with images of everything that I felt comforting in life. I couldn't help my eyes from drooping.

I looked down at my feet, and discovered I was swaying. I tried to stop myself, but I found out I couldn't. The girl next to me still had her fingers in the middle of my forehead. I peered up at her, and in my dazed mind, I suddenly recognized her face.

She had arrived here at Camp Half-Blood about six weeks ago. She was fairly new here, so she had stayed in the Hermes cabin until she had gotten claimed. I had forgotten who she had been claimed by. There were so many new campers nowadays that all of their faces just seemed to blur together in my mind. As soon as I thought of it, however, I could remember her claiming as clearly as if it had taken place yesterday.

***Flashback***

The girl sat at dinner, eating in the dining pavilion with the Hermes cabin. All of the campers had just sacrificed a portion of their meal to the gods. The girl was sitting at her table, isolated at the end of the bench. She was shy and quiet, avoided eye contact with anyone, and rarely spoke. She seldom laughed at the jokes the people at her table told, or even smiled.

Suddenly, a gasp went up from the demigods in the dining pavilion, and everybody turned to the girl, their eye wide. The girl's forehead furrowed in confusion. Why was everyone staring at her? She looked around at all the astonished face. Everybody seemed to be looking at her head.

She looked up and her mouth gaped slightly. Hovering above her was a symbol. It was of a plain white tree branch dipped in a milky white substance that dripped off one drop at a time. Red flowers, poppies, surrounded it on both sides. As the girl looked up, the sign faded before her very eyes. All of the demigods were left astonished, their mouths gaping. Then the first ones began to kneel.

"Hail, Melissa," Chiron's voice echoed in the girl's head, faint, as if it were coming from a long distance. "Daughter of Hypnos, god of sleep."

***End of Flashback***

I peered back up at the girl. Melissa. Well, that answered all of my questions. Melissa still had her fingers on my forehead, and my eyes had begun to droop even more. I tried to fight it, but, like Piper, I had no success. The girl's sleep powers were just too strong for me to resist. My eyes closed gently, and I slumped to the ground, fast asleep.

The last thing I saw before I hit the forest floor was the figure of Melissa pitching toward and hitting the ground next to me.

**Nobody's POV, Third Person**

After Melissa had fainted, and Nyssa had volunteered to carry her back into friendly territory, all of the demigods on both patrols gathered in the clearing in which the flag was held. All five of the main demigods gathered in a circle in the clearing. They laid Melissa down on the ground between them, and told the others to watch her for a moment. Then they turned back to Zeus's Fist.

The demigods walked over the the pile of rocks, and peered up at the top. Both Piper and Malcolm were asleep in front of it. Jason looked regretfully at Piper, who was sprawled out on the ground, but he didn't move to wake her up. She just simply took her dagger, Katoptris, out of her hand, and slid it into her belt. She didn't even stir.

The half bloods looked up at the flag. It glowed faintly in the darkness with a slight metallic color. They quietly discussed who would go to get it. In the end, it seemed that Percy was the winner. The son of Poseidon sighed, but quickly and quietly scaled the rocks. He got to the top in record times and climbed back down, careful not to make any sort of loud noise.

The flag was pure white, with the emblems of a gray owl and a bronze dagger on it. Percy gave it to Jason, and he held it in his hand.

The red team had the flag.

**Wow. That was way longer than I thought it would be. Sorry, once again, for the long wait. I feel so bad! Does this chapter make it up to you? I really hope it does! It is is super long, and took a while for me to write.**

**So, let's get down to business. Do you want Drewgo to happen? (Thanks, awesomesauce90!) If so, if you haven't already, please review! **

**Even if you don't want to answer the Drewgo question, can you review anyway? Please? Reviews always make me feel so good, and they help me write faster. So if you want to next chapter to come more quickly; review!**

**Gosh, what is it with me and long author's notes? I hope you aren't getting too bored listening to me ramble about semi-important things. We have one more thing to cover, and then we're done. Probably.**

**So, even if you guys choose not to review, the next chapter will HOPEFULLY (I'm not making any promises) be up by next Friday. So stay tuned.**

**I'm outta here,**

**snowflake45**

**P.S.: Including the long author's notes (sorry everyone!), this chapter was a grand total of 9434 words. Shocked, right?**


	5. Chapter 5

**Hi guys! I hope this makes you happy. I updated on time (more or less)! Yay! So, disclaimer.**

**Disclaimer: I obviously don't own PJO or HOO. They wouldn't have been as awesome as they are if I was the author. I probably would've messed them all up. Yikes.**

**Okay, this author's note is shorter than last time. *cheers* But I have a huge one at the end, so be warned.**

**Sara's POV**

I gathered at the border with the rest of my siblings. There were about six of us in all. I understood that we could be good at scouting, but I was also disappointed. Most of my siblings and I wished that we were the ones who were going to capture the flag. However, since none of us had wanted to anger Annabeth, we had kept that crucial fact to ourselves.

I peered through the trees on the other side of the border. I could very dimly make out a gathering of Apollo campers. I nudged one of my sisters, and pointed. She nodded, to tell me she understood. She got the attention of the rest of my siblings. They all looked in the direction of the enemy demigods.

Because our mother was the goddess of victory, we excelled at every single sport we had ever attempted. We were especially good at swordfighting. I guess that was partly due to our ADHD, and partly due to the demigod abilities we had inherited from our mom. But the point is, when we rushed out there, plowing through the stream, and screaming like maniacs; those puny little Apollo campers didn't stand a chance.

At first, as soon as they spotted us, they tried to shoot their arrows. They whistled towards us, cutting through the air in front of our faces with deadly accuracy. They surely would have met their targets, if we hadn't been already prepared. As soon as the arrows came at us, my siblings and I immediately dodged to the left or right. We crouched near to the ground, and waited until the barrage of arrows ceased. As soon as the sons and daughters of Apollo stopped shooting at us, my siblings and I sprung up from our hiding places, and attacked.

While the Apollo campers were very talented with with their bows, it seemed that they were less gifted in close combat. As soon as we appeared from the underbrush, they let loose a onslaught of arrows that made deadly arcs at us. However, we were once again ready for them, and as soon as they approached, immediately hit the dirt. As soon the arrows ceased, my siblings and I leapt forward, and attacked again. This time, instead of being prepared for us, the Apollo campers were caught slightly by surprise when we besieged them. They tried to shoot at us, but they were panicked, and their arrows missed us by an inch or so. They flew in every other direction, lodging themselves in trees, and tearing through plants. Some of them even flew straight into the ground.

The Apollo campers soon figured out that their bows were useless against us. The only problem was that bows and arrows were their main weapon, and they didn't really use anything else. Very few of their siblings had any other sort of other weapon, such as a sword or a knife. The ones that did, withdrew them, but the number of kids were really very low. Out of the eight campers I saw standing there, only about two of them had other means of combat.

To say the very least, we creamed them. It was just too easy. Most of my siblings and I carried a sword, so it was absolutely no competition. The people of the Apollo cabin that held an alternate weapon included a girl with a small dagger, and a boy with a short sword. They tried their best to fight us off, but it was no use. The two kids weren't very skilled with their sword and dagger, and one of my brothers and I easily disarmed them. The rest of their group attempted to shoot at us from a little ways away, but their arrows never found their targets. I knocked out the boy with the sword, while one my my sisters knocked out the girl. They both crumpled to the ground, almost in unison, their weapons falling onto the ground, and the arrows spilling out of the quivers on their backs.

My sibling and I advanced forward. The remainder of the Apollo campers crowded in a corner of the woods, knowing they didn't stand a chance against us in close combat. We quickly took them out. The kids tried to fight back, but they couldn't even land a blow on us. Their arrows were basically useless. They had no alternative weapons.

The Apollo kids tried to shoot at us, but once again, we dodged their attacks. They decided to target our legs which was a good strategy, but we jump leapt over the arrows. They tried to hit our sword arms, but none of the arrows made contact. Then we were on them, and they stopped shooting their arrows, afraid to hit one of their siblings.

As I clubbed the last Apollo camper over the head, and watched him fall to the ground, I wiped my brow tiredly. I had never really wanted to be a child of Apollo, but now I was so glad I wasn't. They had been basically defenseless against us without their bows. I snorted, thanking my lucky stars that I was a child of Nike. I could live with that. And actually, my mom was pretty cool. I mean, there was a whole brand of shoes named after her, and she was basically the founder and patron of the Olympian games. Much better, in my opinion, than Apollo, even if he _is _one of the twelve Olympians.

My siblings and I gathered at the edge of the forest, straight in plain sight. I knew that was risky, and that could have easily given away our location, but we didn't really care. If anyone spotted us, we could always just knock them unconscious. And even if there were multiple campers who saw us, I had no doubt of my and my siblings' abilities. Clubbing them over the head would solve the problem immediately.

I stood by the banks of the stream with the rest of my siblings. The bodies of the unconscious Apollo campers lay scattered around us. I kicked at the ground with one foot, making a deep trench in the soft dirt of the shore. "Well, Annabeth isn't going to be pleased."

"Oh, who cares?" One of my brothers said. His names was James. "We knocked them all out. No one is going to know."

"But what if they come to before we locate the flag?" My sister, Nora, said.

"They won't. I hit them pretty hard over the head." Said Kai. He was the messenger who was going to find Annabeth after we secured the flag's location.

"We don't know that." Diane, my little sister, pointed out.

We fell into an uncomfortable silence. I broke it.

"How about we be a little more careful from now on? Our primary goal is to find the flag."

Nicholas snorted. "We can always knock out whoever sees us. We don't have to be careful."

"It would be better if we were," I pointed out.

My brother just rolled his eyes, and muttered, "Whatever," under his breath.

"I agree with Sara," said Diane.

"Finally!" I said in fake relief and enthusiasm. My voice was sarcastic as I spoke. "There's someone who agrees with my opinion!"

"Shut up," James said.

"No, you shut up!" I replied hotly.

"Guys," Nora said. "Cool it."

I opened my mouth to make an angry retort, but I didn't. Instead I mumbled, "Fine. Let's just go find the flag."

My siblings and I ran into the woods together. We charged into the undergrowth, making all kinds of noise. Dry leaves crinkled under our feet, and twigs and branches snapped as we sprinted into the woods. We ran at a breakneck speed, not even caring if we tripped on tree roots, or got smacked over the head by a branch. I knew Annabeth wouldn't look so kindly on our recklessness, but at the moment, I didn't really care. She could scold us all she wanted, but none of it would really matter in the long run.

We must have been stirring up a lot of noise because we didn't get half a mile into the woods before we got confronted. A group of six demigods: three Apollo kids, two Iris campers, and one child of Hypnos, stepped out of the shadows. They all had their swords drawn. Without even waiting for us to register their appearance, the Iris and Hypnos campers launched themselves at us, their blades flashing. The Apollo kids stood back a distance, and shot at us. My siblings and I dived to the side, narrowly missing being hit.

The other campers approached us, sneaking up to us on either our left or right. We whirled around, unsheathing our swords as we went, and met them with the tips of our blades. The Iris campers and the Hypnos kid charged in our direction without a second thought. They slashed at us, but we rolled to the side, and parried their next attack. I played defense for a little while, choosing to defend myself rather than attack the enemy, but I soon got impatient. After about five minutes of this game, I started pushing the Iris camper who I was fighting hard. He could barely keep up with the blows I dealt at him. I gave him multiple cuts on his arms and legs, before I finally ended up knocking him out. I hit him over the head, the _clunk _of the butt of my sword hitting his helmet reverberating around the forest.

The rest of my siblings stood next to me, facing their own opponents. Nora and James stood against two of the Apollo campers, their backs pressed up against each other. Diane dealt with the Hypnos kid, and Kai and Nicholas took out the remaining enemy demigods. In less than ten minutes, maybe even less, all of the attacking campers were on the ground, unconscious.

"Well," Nora said. "That was...surprising."

"Yeah, this is the reason why we should be more careful!" I exclaimed.

"Why?" Kai asked. "We can always knock out anyone who see us. It's no big deal."

"No big deal?" I asked. "How do you know someone isn't watching us right now?" I pointed into the underbrush to make my point. My siblings turned to look in that direction. Nobody was there.

"Really, Sara," James said. "I don't think that's completely reasonable. There's obviously no one there there."

I snorted. "Yeah, I know. That wasn't my point."

James glared at me, but he didn't say anything.

"Come on," Diane said. "We have to go on. But be quieter this time."

We turned back to the dark forest and walked into it, our bronze swords glowing slightly in the shadows. It had gotten dark, and my siblings and I could hardly see three yards in front of our face. We unsheathed our swords, and held them close to our face. Their dull sheen lit up the area around our face, throwing light onto our features. The eyes of my siblings gleamed in the darkness, a deep brown color in the night-like dusk.

We walked on, this time careful not to make a sound. I could tell the rest of my siblings, particularly my brothers were a little miffed at me, and their hostility and anger rolled off of them in waves. I could feel it clearly against my skin, and I shivered slightly, partly from the night breeze, but also from from apprehension as well. We continued to trek through the forest. It continued to get darker and darker, and the shadows grew longer as the sun set behind the trees, and a great blackness fell over the whole forest. The light coming off from our blades seemed insignificant and weak compared to the darkness surrounding us in every direction.

Suddenly, I heard a noise to my left. I immediately spun on my heel, and faced that direction. Kai started to speak, but I shushed him, and gave him a dirty look. He shut up instantly, and my group fell into an uncomfortable silence.

The stillness continued. There wasn't a sound in the forest other than the occasional rustle of leaves, and the noises of the wildlife. The sound I had heard had disappeared.

Nota started to speak, "Sara, if you are just imaging things, I think-"

"Wait!" I exclaimed in a low voice. "There it is again!" And there it was indeed. The faint, whispered voices of the campers. For any other demigods playing capture-the-flag, hearing the voices of your opponents while you are on enemy territory wasn't that good. It usually meant they were close and you would probably ended up getting yourself caught and sent to jail. It would mean that they were seconds away from finding you, and you probably couldn't do anything about it. But for my siblings and I, it was a jewel of opportunity. To us, it meant that we were getting closer to the flag.

I strained to hear what was being said. The voices were still a great deal off, and I couldn't hear them clearly. My forehead furrowed in concentration, and I strained my ears to their max. I could hear the words and phrases like, "clearing" and "no one's attacking" and "think they'll succeed" and "sword". None of it made a lot of sense. I frowned. I had to get closer.

I crept forward, careful to stay silent, and not to step on anything that would make a noise of any kind. Very quietly, my siblings followed, trailing behind me. We approached the direction in which the noise was coming from with a sound. We very careful, slipped into the undergrowth. The sound of leaves scraping along our clothes sounded loud to our ears, but we didn't hesitate or stop. I continued toward.

About a hundred yards or so forward, we found the source of the noise. The whispers were coming from a patch of forest surrounded on all sides by tall, flexible trees. As my brothers, sisters, and I crawled up to it, I heard the voices speak.

"So," said the first voice. The person who was speaking was obviously male. I couldn't place his voice, however. It was foreign to me. "Are all the defenses set up?"

"Yep," said another unfamiliar voice. This one was female. "Everything is in order."

"No one's attacked yet though," said a third voice. This one, along with the first two, was also unrecognizable. It was male.

"Yeah, it seems kind of weird..." The first voice trailed off.

"Just you wait," said the third one. "The blue team's probably standing outside of this clearing right now, and planning on ambushing us when we let our guard down."

I threw a look at my siblings. Diane's innocent face peered back at me. Nora, Kai, and James were staring intently at the forest, hanging on to every word that was said. I couldn't see their expressions. Nicholas's face was twisted into an evil and absolutely malicious look. He was silently cackling, like that was exactly what he was thinking. I quickly turned away. He was freaking me out. I couldn't even believe I was related to him.

I crept toward a few more paces to hear the conversation clearer. I wanted to remember every word of it. The second voice said, "We should get back to Leo. He'll want an update."

"Yeah," the third voice agreed. "Let's head back to the glade."

I turned to my siblings. "'Glade'?" I whispered, a confused look on my face. Most of my brothers and sisters just shrugged. Nicholas pointedly ignored me.

There was a soft rustle in the bushes to the left of us. My siblings and I waited for about three minutes, just in case the demigods were still there. When we were sure they were gone, my brothers and sisters and I sprung up from our place on the forest floor. We hurried into the clearing where there were clearly a set of footprints heading east into the woods. My sister, Nora, was the was the most skilled tracker of all of us. She immediately dropped to her knees on the ground, and examined the footprints.

For a moment, she just stared at the prints, her forehead scrunched up in concentration, and her brain comprehending what they meant. After another minute or two, she looked up at us. "There were three half bloods here." She said.

"Well, duh," Nicholas said. "We heard three voices. That took you sixty seconds to figure out?"

Nora ignored her half brother. "They went east. They talked about how they were going to rendezvous with Leo. That must mean we are close."

"Close to what?" Kai asked.

Diane rolled her eyes. "To the flag, silly. I'm thirteen years old, three years younger than you, and even _I_ know that."

"And ten times sassier," James mumbled under his breath.

I glared at him, but let it go. "Well, what are we waiting for?" I asked. "Let's go follow them!"

My siblings and I ran into the forest. Branches from different types of tree whipped by us, smacking us in the face, but our pace never waved. We ran as fast as we could, following the demigods. Eventually, after about ten minutes of running, we spotted them up ahead. We unanimously hit the dirt, and hid ourselves as the enemy half bloods approached the clearing located in front of them.

I gestured to my brothers and sisters, and we quietly and carefully crept up a few yards. We were now in a position where we could hear the demigods' conversation with ease. Everything was silent as I heard the trio walk up to the clearing. The first voice called out, "Are you there?"

"Yes," another one answered almost immediately. "Is that you, Bryan?"

"Of course," Bryan answered. "Who's this?"

"Who do you think?" The voice asked. There was a rustle of someone moving through the undergrowth, and a minute later, a figure appeared. I cautiously peeked over the bush I was behind. The person was Leo.

"Leo." The relief was evident in Bryan's voice. "The traps are all set."

"Alright." Leo said. He looked over his shoulder, like he was expecting someone to be padding out of the brush after he. No one was. He turned back to Bryan. "We just have to wait for Kayla and her gang. Then we have to secure the perimeter. We're not supposed to be here."

"Right." The other boy was the one that spoke.

Just at that moment, a girl appeared. She entered from the part of the forest to the right of my siblings and I. I jumped, surprised at how close she came to finding us. Thank the gods she hadn't seen us, or we would have been in deep trouble. Another girl and boy trailed behind her. As she walked up to the others, a brilliant smile illuminated her face. "Hey guys," she said.

"Hi," said the other girl. "We were just wondering where you were."

"Oh, my siblings and I were just setting up the last of the traps," she said, still grinning. "There is absolutely no way the other team is going to get to this glade without attaining a somewhat serious injury." Her happy smile turned slightly mischievous, and her eyes gleamed in the half light.

"Good job," said Leo. "Now, I think it's time to depart. We don't want to be caught hanging around here when the other team finally decided to attack."

"You're right," Kayla said. "Let's go." And together, the seven demigods walked away, out of the patch of woods, and into the darkness.

My siblings and I waited a minute or two, and then abruptly stood up. We quietly made our way over to the entrance to the clearing. We peered into it, not even making a peep. In the center of the glade stood a tall, golden haired boy, and a slim, dark haired boy. The blonde boy I recognized as the counselor for the Apollo cabin. His name was Will. The dark haired boy I knew was Nico, one of the twice-heroes of Olympus. They stood under a huge tree, its branches reaching far into the air, as if it wanted to embrace the sky and the night itself. Half of its leaves sat on the ground around its trunk, colored in different shades of red, orange, and brown. The rest still resided on its half-bare branches, sporting the same color as the others.

None of that was what caught my attention, however. The thing that drew my gaze away from everything else was nestled in the gigantic branches of the tree. It was pure white with the symbols of a lighting bolt, a trident, and a skull on it.

It was the flag.

As soon as she saw it, Diane gave a small little gasp. We all turned to her and, on instinct, shushed her, even though their was no one near us. She immediately put her hands over her mouth, and sunk down to the floor. We took a step toward, and then stopped.

I turned to my siblings. "Should we get Annabeth?"

Nicholas scowled. "There's only two of them. What's the big deal? We could easily take them down."

Nora snorted. "Nico's a son of Hades. He's a son of the Big Three. Will is the head counselor of the Apollo cabin. His father is one of the twelve Olympians. I don't think it would be as easy as you think."

"I agree," said James. "We need backup."

We all turned to Kai. He nodded. Nicholas crossed his arms and scowled, but he begrudgingly said, "Fine."

Kai turned to us. "I'll be back in a flash." The he turned back around again, and sprinted into the darkness, leaving us to stare off in the direction of the flag.

Waiting.

**Kai's POV**

I ran into the forest, my heart beating in my chest, my lungs burning. I sprinted on through the undergrowth, running as fast as humanly possible. Considering I was a son of Nike, that could be pretty fast. My chest heaved, and the stitch in my side grew until it was almost unbearable. I had to stop, panting and gasping for breath, my hands resting on my knees, and my back hunched.

As I stood, fighting for breath, I recalled the last time I had run this fast. It had been about a year ago, when I had first come to camp. It had happened right after the end of the Second Titan War. I was being pursued by a rogue hellhound from the Titan King's former army, and I had been sprinting on straight for about three miles before I had stumbled across the border of Camp Half-Blood. It had been around midnight when I had reached Thalia's pine tree. I had been exhausted. I had almost died multiple times that night, and I had no idea I was a demigod. Everything had seemed so confusing then.

My father had sent me away from our home in Maine saying, "Your mother will explain everything." I had had no idea what he had meant by that, but I went nonetheless. To me, my mother was dead. Then, just on the tip of Long Island Sound, that hellhound had found me. And the rest of the story is history.

I sank down on the forest floor, and put my head in my hands. That had taken place so long ago and yet, here I was, thinking about it. I had tried my hardest to forget about it, but there were some things that you can't ever erase from your memory. Especially tragic, life changing things.

I sat on the ground for a few more moments, listening to the beat of my heart, and remembering my claiming. I had just scaled the climbing wall in record time on my first try. When I had slid back down to the ground, everybody had started staring at my head like it had just turned to glass. So when I looked up what I had seen had made my jaw drop. Hovering moved my head was an olive green laurel wreath. It was curved in a horseshoe-like way, and shone in the morning sunlight. When I looked back, everybody looked astounded. They had said one word, "Nike."

After that, I was moved to the Nike cabin. I met Nicholas and Sara. Soon after, Nora, James, and Diane joined us. And I had a whole new family. I never met my mother, still to this day, but I had other people in my life. Other people I could care about. Other people who could care about me.

With a grunt, I pulled myself to my feet, and started running again. I ran past some Hypnos and Iris campers. I sprinted past the Apollo kids. My chest heaved, but my heart felt content and full. This is who I am.

I ran, never stopping, all the way across the enemy's territory, never stopping once for breath, never pausing in my stride. I ran all the way up to Annabeth and the Athena cabin. When they saw me, they turned around expectantly. I marched right up to Annabeth and said:

"We found the flag."

**I know this chapter is short. And I am very sorry about it. But sadly, that's the way it is.**

**Okay. This is really weird. You know how I randomly named one of my OC's 'Nicholas', and he's a son of Nike, goddess of victory? Well, apparently the name, 'Nicholas' is a Greek name that means, 'victory of the people'. I kid you not. It's 100% true. I had no idea until I looked it up myself. I advise you to do the same. Just type the name into Google or something. Check it out for yourself.**

**Wow. That was really ironic. I just thought up that name randomly, you know. Must be a coincidence. Although, didn't it say in SON that that are no such things as coincidences to demigods? I don't remember, but I think it does. **

**So, question: Which team do you want to win the capture-the-flag game? It won't affect the storyline I have in mind; I was just wondering. Please review your answer.**

**Oh, and also, please review anyway, even if you don't want to answer the question. Thank you to anyone who has faved or followed my story again. **

**Bye for now,**

**snowflake45**


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